Maggie's Farm

Finally, it looks like the Supremes are going to reaffirm the Second Amendment despite Justice Breyer's incomprehensible musings, roughly "I'm not sure why Washington DC shouldn't have the right to ban handguns, with their terrible crime rate."

Hey, Mr. Justice: Why doesn't Waterbury CT have the "right" to ban McDonalds, with their terrible obesity rate?

I thought people had rights to protect them from government powers. Or did I get it wrong? If this deal goes down the right way, there will be much to thank Pres. Bush for. Decision expected in June.

One of my many planned gardening projects this spring is to put in a row of three tree hydrangeas behind a low fence on which my climbing roses grow (they are New Dawn. Note to rose fans: those New Dawn roses need monthly fertilizer during the summer. In fact, all roses want regular feeding or they will not do well).

I like the old-fashioned look of the tree form, and they can be pruned to keep them small for a garden. The one in the photo is too droopy for my taste, I think, but it makes for a living bouquet.

This G.K. Chesterton essay seemed related to our piece on Deontological Ethics, and AVI touches on the same topic today:

From a report of a talk titled "The Need for a Philosophy"  by Chesterton in 1923, which is introduced thus:

...the sometimes lightly described 'Philosopher of fun' produces a powerful attack on two modern 'isms' that he accuses of being profoundly un-philosophical. If utilitarianism, ('brutaliarianism',) and relativism are allowed to become the modern way, "It means full steam in the darkness with lights out."

A quote:

There was a famous American who said that England had no weather, only samples. That is true today of modern views about life. They are scrappy. Now what is excellent as regards weather is not excellent as regards the things of the mind. Modern England has no thinking, only thoughts. Thoughts can be brilliant and suggestive - journalism, literature and fiction are full of random thoughts on human life - but thinking is something different and it is extraordinarily rare. Some people, especially those who do not think, imagine that thinking is a painful process, but to my mind it is the best game in the world, and connected thinking of some kind - knowing what you mean and not following catchwords - is necessary for us all. 

and

...what began as free thought has now developed into freedom from thought. All through history, there have been broad conceptions of the aims of life, tests of morality which masses of men have held and applied with certainty; but in the modern world these various systems have been abandoned and what is left of them is nothing but debris - a collection of broken bits, the ruins of past philosophies. There are some, like myself, who hold a mystical philosophy, a belief that behind human experience there are realities, powers of good and evil, and the final test for things is their influence for good or evil. The good power intends us to be happy and we are justified in being happy, but the real question is not whether we are happy, but whether, behind the things wherein we seek our happiness lies the, power of good. Are they parts of the good or of the evil? 

Read the whole summary here.

A reader sent us two good arborist sites. I would never go up a tree with a chain saw, but I realize that I might not be all that safe with one even with my feet on the ground.

ArboristSite

ArborMaster

Don't look at it. It will distract you from Maggie's Farm and cause you to waste time. There is only so much time in the day:

The Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys.

Mini-daffodils, and Brant decoy. (That's a tall Schipka "Skip" laurel out the window.)

From Riverdance:

Re the excellent post below about Rev. Wright, here's a truth about America, quoted via Attack Machine:

Q. Are Americans more or less charitable than citizens of other countries?
A. No developed country approaches American giving. For example, in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans. These differences are not attributable to demographic characteristics such as education, income, age, sex, or marital status. On the contrary, if we look at two people who are identical in all these ways except that one is European and the other American, the probability is still far lower that the European will volunteer than the American.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing...not curing...not healing...that is a friend who cares.

Henry Nouwen

Basket of Fruit, 1597. I note that this still life, and the previous one, both had flawed apples. Makes it more interesting.

Quoted from a AVI piece on victimology, and the one candidate who never pulls the "poor me" stunt:

...it is amusing to take a snapshot of how all these people came up and what was happening in the legendary year 1969. Hillary Clinton was graduating from Wellesley or her way to Yale Law School; Gloria Steinem, after graduating from Smith and publishing a book, was the lioness of the women's movement; Geraldine Ferraro had interrupted her law career to raise children (there may have been some actual suffering in that; she went on to found the - irony alert - Special Victims Unit); Reverend Jeremiah Wright was getting his master's degree. Barack Obama was an eight-year old stepson of an oil company executive in Indonesia. He would go on to Occidental, Columbia and Harvard.

John McCain was being tortured in a North Vietnamese prison.

- reposted from April, 2005

  By guest author Shaun L. Kelly

           His distinct tenor, reassuring and cerebral, was the second-most heard male voice of my childhood.  Only my father’s fixed baritone surpassed his as the soundtrack of my years growing up in the greater Boston area.  For thirty-two summers - with discernible sagacity and style - Ned Martin served as the principal voice of the Boston Red Sox.   

          In an age where humility and grace slowly receded from our national character, Martin’s modesty and elegance separated him from a host of other announcers – and people.  He never intentionally developed a defined signature call for a homerun.  The ball was simply “gone”. 

          And yet, he used words as a composer uses the notes on a scale.  He seemed to embrace the notion first put forth by Emerson “that every word was once a poem”.  There was nothing ever “programmed” about Ned Martin.  Cogent phrases seem to tumble from his mouth like falling stars. 

          Unlike most sports announcers, Ned Martin was able to frequently quote from the most gifted bards of English literature - Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Dickens, Hemingway - in order to put the narrative of baseball into its proper context.  He was a reader, and he brought a reader’s sensibility to each and every broadcast.

           Ned Martin was also a deeply-rooted theorist and philosopher.  Because he had dipped into the bonfires of hell as a Marine at the close of the Second World War, Ned described each game as an inherent existentialist.  Like his beloved Frost, he had a lover’s quarrel with the world. 

          But Ned Martin was more than just a Red Sox announcer.  To me, he served as a personal captain, steering me through the choppy waters of both youth and adolescence - guiding, nurturing, and instructing me as I listened intently, his most loyal and devoted student.  

How's this ad? (h/t Powerline)

Reposted from April, 2005:

William Galston, Taking Liberty, in Washington Monthly:

"At a 1956 conference, Milton Friedman argued that a free market was the necessary foundation for societies in which individual liberty flourishes. What had begun as the precondition of freedom soon became its template: Libertarian conservatives redefined freedom as the right to choose and extended this understanding far beyond the market, to social relations and public policy.

These thinkers encountered a challenge within the emerging conservative movement, from traditionalists who focused on values such as order and virtue and who questioned the social consequences of the unfettered market. This tension was not in all respects an outright contradiction and thus proved to be manageable. In his classic Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman acknowledged that every form of social organization—including the market—relies on a framework of generally accepted rules, and that “no set of rules can prevail unless most participants most of the time conform to them without external sanctions.” Not only must participants internalize rules, he continued, they must also develop certain traits of character. These requirements are especially demanding in systems of liberty: Freedom can be preserved, he concluded, “only for people who are willing to practice self-denial, for otherwise freedom degenerates into license and irresponsibility.” "

Read entire here.

Only two very short videos exist of Woody Guthrie performing. Here's one of them, from 1945:

Verse 2 of The Burial of the Dead, from The Waste Land (entire poem here). You can hear Eliot reading the poem here. Worth doing. The words and rhythms of Waste Land have become part of our psyche, haven't they?

I tend to agree with Roy Innes Jr. (on Sean on the radio today) that the Rev. Wright is a bit of a shock jock. Maybe so, but, if so, not an amusing one.

Mr. Obama's team is realizing that the Rev. Wright can sink his ship.

I have two comments. 1. Imagine what whould happen if a white guy talked that way about any other skin-colored people. 2. I have only heard and read selected bits, but does that pastor ever talk about God?

Today, anybody of any color or background should be thanking their lucky stars if they ended up in the USA - no matter how they arrived here: slavery ship, Mayflower, a leaky schooner from Ireland or a leaky freighter from Sicily or China - or whatever. If you have what it takes to build the life you want, you have a chance to do it here.

The categorical imperative is little more than a fancy version of Do unto others, I think. The Rev. Wright needs to rethink his hatred.

Quoted from Dr. Bob's The Advent:

In these 40 years, we have learned many things. We have learned that slogans about change are the same as change. We have learned that “do your own thing” is a principal worth inculcating into the very fabric of our lives. We have learned that how we feel is more important than what we do. We have learned that ideas do not have consequences — but are themselves consequences.

We have learned that our government is not to be trusted, that our country is not to be loved. We have learned that what our country can do for us is more important than what we can do for our country. We have learned that the government always lies; that the media is always truthful; that corporations are evil; that unrestricted license is good.

We have learned to be green, and to relish the obscene. We have learned that religion is patriarchal and oppressive; that social mores and morality are to be challenged and rejected; that “freedom of speech” means burning the flag, smearing Madonna with feces; immersing the crucifix in urine; being obnoxious, abusive, and vicious while never entertaining criticism or rebuttal.

We have learned not to think, but to feel; not to reason but to react; not to dialogue but to detest; not to take responsibility but to accuse. We have learned to bolster our self-esteem, and worship our self-gratification. We have learned that someone else should always pay; that we are entitled to whatever we want; that wealth and happiness are our birthright. We have learned that god is within; that our existence is a cosmic coincidence; that our purpose is self-aggrandizement and acquisition of money and power. We have learned that only the material is true; that spiritual principles and practice are but opinions; that there is no truth anyway, only narrative.

There is much we have not learned during our long advent...

Read the whole thing.

Turdus in the snow: What an ugly name for almost everyone's favorite American Bird bird (except for the Ruffed Grouse), our good buddy Turdus migratorius. The Robin. We have small flocks of them all winter here, living on berries and old fruit, but they are on the move north now, and we see more - mainly flocks of males.

Yesterday I heard their spring song for the first time. Today we have snow and that spring song has been put on hold.

Did you know that they used to be hunted for food? And that they are really woodland thrushes who have found a way to adapt to suburbia?

Learn more about a familiar friend: American Robin

Photo: Sugar maple full of Robins, March 2007.

Rumor has it that the 200 year-old Silvermine Tavern, in the very pleasant Silvermine area of Norwalk, CT, is for sale.

I lunched there many times, as a lad. You can watch ducks in the old millpond from the window. The style is "country elegant." As I recall, gents must wear a jacket and tie for dinner in the dining room.

They have won the prize for "Best Brunch in Fairfield County" for over 20 years. I'm sure they mean their Sunday after-church brunch.

My family referred to such cozy old inns as "sticky-bun" restaurants, or as "stuff-and waddles" because one tended to stuff oneself and waddle out.

I wonder if they still have sweetbreads on the menu. Yum.

(No, we are not in the real estate biz. It is just amusing for us to see what's for sale, occasionally.)

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.

From David Mamet's excellent essay, Why I am no longer a brain-dead Liberal, as quoted in a piece at Blue Crab

High school girls learn auto mechanics. Central High School, Washington, DC, 1927 (via Shorpy)