Maggie's Farm

Maggie's Farm is a state of mind, and doesn't really represent a single literal farm, as The Barrister has said.

At the same time, to add some ambiguity to the idea, it is partly inspired by a literal farm which was given as a land grant by King George lll to my ancestors, many of whom are buried in the graveyard by the side of the road. It is in the Massachusetts Berkshire Hills, and close enough to Tanglewood for convenience, but I will not say where.

It is remarkable that a place should be in the family, fully intact, after all of these years, although the original farmhouses burned down (cellar-holes still in place) and many of the barns, buildings, and the marble-cutting mill by the river have fallen down over the years.

Much of our stone is marble up here, and much of it was quarried in the first half of the 1800s and pulled by oxen to be floated down the Housatonic River for shipment to NYC, Providence, and Boston for their fancy buildings. All of our barns and buildings have marble foundations beneath their rickety structures. Even the diving "board" at the stream's swimming hole is a 6x4x4 block of marble sticking out into the water which must have been left behind when the last load of marble departed.

The marble was surely a nice income supplement for thse hardscrabble dairy farmers.

One of the two surviving, and gradually being renovated, liveable quarters on the farm was originally built as a rustic and simple dwelling for the mill workers in 1820.

Assistant Village Idiot, in his post Wisdom from a Liberal of Another Era, quoted this paragraph - among others - from a 1938 E.B. White essay in One Man's Meat:

I'm down now; the barn is tight, and the peace is preserved. It is the ugliest peace the earth has ever received for a Christmas present. Old England eating swastika for breakfast instead of kipper is a sight I had as lief not lived to see. And though I am no warrior, I would gladly fight for the things Nazism seeks to destroy. (Living in a sanitary age, we are getting so we place too high a value on human life - which rightfully must always come second to human ideas.)

I say "Old England eating Islam instead of kippers." (I love kippers for breakfast.) The New Yorker has always had an anglophilic streak. But AVI  asks:

Does anyone at the New Yorker think that today?

Read his whole piece, which I have been thinking about for a week. AVI rightly observes that today's anti-war folks would probably renounce  pacifism, but claim that Iraq is not a place for Americans to die. That is debatable, but it seems that the bad guys need to be killed somewhere. Why not there?

But on to the bigger issues: Do we, today, tend to place too high a value on human life? Are there ideas we will die for, or communities we will die for, or will we only die for family? Is our precious selfhood, which some might term narcissism, more important than anything else to us and, if it is, what changed between 1938 (before the US was in the war) and today?

Photos: Yes, we are E.B. White fans. Below is the Maine boathouse in which he wrote Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. A favorite E.B. White quote:

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have a hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."

If I were a preacher, I would like to have preached this sermon: Believing is Seeing, by R. Maurice Boyd of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church (1991).

It seemed relevant to all of the miracles reported in Luke 5.

One brief quote:

Science isn't a matter of believing only what you see. Science is a matter of believing and seeing by believing. One of the greatest scientists tells us that. Einstein said that it all begins in an attitude and the attitude is one of wonder which is not far from faith. He says that astronomy began not when somebody looked at a star through a telescope. It began when somebody said, "Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are." Say that seeing is believing, but if you do, don't expect to be a scientist.

Read the whole thing.

Photo: A Hubble photo of infant stars in a star nursery.

Since my group is doing Luke 5 this week, I thought I'd post some. Simon Peter's reaction to the haul of fish is notable. As a friend said, a natural reaction might be "Hey, Jesus - how the heck did you do that?"

Luke 5: 1-11

1 And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
2 And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. 
 3 And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.
4 Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a ^adraught.
5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have ^atoiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. 
 6 And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net ^abrake.
7 And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
9 For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken:
10 And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt ^acatch men.
11 And when they had brought their ships to land, they ^aforsook all, and ^bfollowed him.

Image: Duccio (c.1308) The Calling of Peter and Andrew

Albert King, 1980. How can you not love this guy?

Dear Dr. Bliss:

Since you posted on Freud today, I thought I would note that this friendly young lady appeared in my dream last night. I was lucky to have my camera with me. What does it mean, if anything? I figgered it meant that the blog had been lacking in human beauty lately, but I am open to any interpretation. I think she might be a witch.

Yours,

Bird Dog (thanks, Theo, for Dream Support Services)

PS: I apologise for the lack of appropriate blog attire on the lady in the photo, but we always try to be accurate here at Maggie's.

Where Bush Went Wrong in Iraq and How He Can Correct It Now, by Dan Friedman at American Thinker.

I hope somebody in the White House reads it.

David Thompson's weekly Friday grab bag always has good stuff. He found a fine Chrysler Building site, whence the photo on right. What do you have to pay somebody to do a job like that? 

Prof. Bainbridge is trying out a new blog format.

Cupcakes are the newest thing.

It's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. LGF

Mary Mapes is back, and Neoneo has her number.

Coolest model airplane. TigerHawk

Opie informs us that Chavez' Citgo has changed its name to Petro Express because people have been boycotting Citgo.

Jesus sandals ditched by Danes. Maybe they were threatened with beheading?

Education in Massachusetts, from Boortz:

Our government school bureaucrats at work. A city superintendent in Massachusetts put dozens of teachers on unpaid leave for failing basic English proficiency tests. Meanwhile, he failed the test too ... but he got a raise! (He also says it's not his fault because his first language is Spanish.)

The al-Dura case, it seems to me, matters a great deal. Sarkozy seems willing to let the chips fall where they may, unlike Chirac. Pallywood and Jihad in general have become expert manipulators of Western media (and eager liars), but this piece of probable acting helped create a firestorm which the truth, when it emerges, will never have the power to extinguish. 

Update on the story at EU Referendum.

Mexican illegals flee to Canada. And France puts a halt to immigration. Raven

Ahmadinejad and ROTC at Columbia. Tigerhawk

The NYT presents amazingly biased scare article about the Arctic summer ice melt, but concludes with this sentence (h/t, piece at Wizbang):

Sea ice around Antarctica has seen unusual winter expansions recently, and this week is near a record high.

Hillary: "I am not a lesbian."

From Insty:

KATHLEEN PARKER: "The latest smack-down of former Harvard President Lawrence Summers should extinguish any remaining doubt that political correctness is the new McCarthyism."

Under-read rant of the week: The News Junkie on Big Soap, Big Tractor, etc.

Image:  From Theo's When it is OK to use the f word

Materialists and madmen never have doubts.

G.K. Chesterton

I wonder. So does Dick Morris (who is often wrong about things).

Right now we have three leading candidates - Rudy, Fred and Hillary - all of whom are celeb candidates, as I see it. Only one of them has ever done anything difficult or substantial, and that is Rudy. (This is not Mitt Romney's year, I think, even though he is a very fine, smart, decent, effective fellow who could probably run anything - and who should maybe, in a perfect world, get elected. But this is the Year of the Celebrity. Even the likeable Obama is just a newly-minted TV celeb with an empty resume.)

Star Parker was once a single mother on welfare, and knows whereof she speaks. Quote:

The poverty that we see today is directly related to people having children outside of marriage and then not working to support those children.

They started with the war on the Black family, and they totally destroyed this family. They spread this message of moral relativism and welfare dependency.

Lots of liberals got hold of the Black community and started convincing them that there is nothing wrong with dependence on government — we started seeing the Black family destroyed. We saw welfare policy enter in with rules that say don't work, don't save, don't get married, and we'll fix all of your life problems for you.

Such a sad, sad story of the unintended consequences of efforts designed by naive intellectuals (who refuse, except for themselves, to understand the roles of incentive, perverse incentive, and disincentive in life) in league with self-seeking politicians. Whole piece at Moonbattery.

More Vaclav Klaus on global warming. He is one of the sane people.

SISU, who appreciates a good segueway, on Roger Simon's piece linking OJ with 9-11/

Who will be the next Pavarotti? NY Sun

A Jacksonian takes an in-depth look at terror in, and Middle East links to, Latin America.

Vodka and pliers. Patients in the UK reduced to pulling their own teeth. Sheesh.

Massive anti-war rally in DC fizzles. A funny report by a disappointed reporter in Sacramento News and Review. He does manage to explain that the lack of turnout was because anti-war sentiment is so strong...got that? (h/t, Driscoll)

A jurisdictional issue? Lawmaker sues God.

Yale's disgrace. Powerline

The kids are back at school, and the sailing dinghies they took their lessons in all summer rest on the beach, waiting to be put away for the winter. This is Long Island Sound last Sunday (thanks, reader).

The way I see this fine photo is that the boats are a reflection of the row of clouds, and vice-versa - same as the sea and the sky.

Can anybody survive without these two unless you live indoors (or unless you have enough gear, which is impossible)? Cabela's and Sierra Trading Post. 

From Lee at Right Thinking:

Here’s what I’d do if I was one of the candidates.  We all saw John Stossel’s report the other night on 20/20 where he talked to the CEO of Whole Foods who, despite selling organic food to hippies and left-wing ...bags, is a staunch libertarian.  He’s implemented a novel approach to providing coverage to his employees, and I’d come out with a comprehensive plan based on something along those lines.  You could also have a bottom rung government health insurance coverage for the complete dickheads and morons of society who simply can’t manage their own lives.  But every one of us knows someone whose lives have been adversely affected by our healthcare system.  Hell, my own parents declared bankruptcy over my dad’s medical costs, so I know what this is like. 

So we have two choices.  We can either get out in front of the issue with a superior alternative, or we can sit with our thumbs up our asses while the government takes over healthcare.  If you like the service you get at the post office, you’ll LOVE government run healthcare.

I am waiting for Rudy and Fred to speak up on the issue eventually, but I know that Bush is already working on it. From a political-tactical point of view, it would seem almost essential to address the subject in some reforming manner which affords an alternative to the frightening systems of England and Canada.

Well, not exactly poisoned, but the majestic and beloved Eastern Hemlock (aka Canadian Hemlock) groves of the eastern US (range map here)  have been under lethal assault by the Wooly Adelgid, a tiny bug native to Japan whose presence is obvious from the white cottony material on the bottom of the Hemlock needles. (photo below)

According to a report in Science Daily, the adelgid has killed 90% of the Hemlocks in the Shenandoah Valley.

Help may be near in the form of a Japanese beetle that lives on adelgids, but maybe too late to save many of the groves.