Maggie's Farm

In the past year we have posted quite a bit on pigs. A reader was kind enough to send in his Show-and-Tell photo above of a recent Texas pig hunt. Is that a piglet his friend is holding in his mouth?

(By the way, which crude, culturally-insensitive reader suggested dropping these from 20,000 feet on Baghdad to clean out Sadr City?)

Our contributor Gwynnie sent this note on Friday:

This weekend, Gwynnie will join a group of ranchers using their depredation permit on a Northern California ranch to try to dent the population of European wild boars that have invaded the California Coast Range and beyond.  She will try to post pictures next week or so. She has done a little research on the issue and found an excellent article excerpted below:

I always enjoy reading Lileks' The Bleat. But I believe that Jim is missing the point there: the Minneapolis Strib obviously wants him to leave. When they move you from the executive suite to the mailroom, that's the message, isn't it?

However, there is another point to be made here: Newspapers have a future in local news, and, I think, a rosy future if they have good online editions - with reader commentary.

"Through me the way into the suffering city,
Through me the way to the eternal pain,
Through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
My maker was divine authority,
The highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things were made,
And I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, ye who enter here."

Take Dante's Hellfire and Damnation Quiz (Copyright 1327) and find out where you stand.

When Spring comes, you are supposed to have a solid inventory of Spring-related stuff. I picked up 20 bags of that Black Forest dark-colored mulch that I prefer, on Saturday. (That red-colored stuff they sell looks like crap - it is fake-looking, detracts from the plants' loveliness, and will make your place look like a MacDonalds.) So I schlepped back after church yesterday to pick up another 20 bags and they were SOLD OUT!

Can't the government do something about this kind of problem? Nationalizing Home Depot might help a lot, dontcha think? It was a great inconvenience for me, and think of the gasoline I wasted on that second trip...plus Home Depot, in their greedy, cruel and evil Capitalist way, makes a profit on this stuff that I need. It's just not fair and it's not right to make money off stuff I need, is it?

LaShawn is generally a sweetly reasonable, mild-mannered soul, but here she vents on illegals. One quote:

Working- and middle-class Americans are the ones suffering. While illegal alien scourge-supporting elites are living it up in gated communities in California, for instance, everyone else is dealing with hispanic gangs. While the elites are working the kind of jobs that put them in contact with zero illegal aliens (well, maybe the janitor), working class folks have to compete for jobs with people who aren’t supposed to be here. Forget that illegal aliens are working for less money. I’m a staunch supporter of the free market, and if legal aliens were driving down wages, I’d complain less loudly. But since the market is being manipulated by illegal means, that’s a problem. (Understatement of the year!)

Yes, there is a great deal of frustration out there in the land about this, especially because the Repubs and the Dems have decided, in a de facto conspiracy of cowardice, not to make it an issue of contention (except for Tancredo).

Blues fan Dust My Broom saw BB King in Calgary this weekend. The man is 81 and still on the road. God bless this lovely, amazingly-talented guy.

Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.

Anon.

New York City Fun (and old bars)

Cooking ducks. It's time to empty ye olde freezer.

Hosta City. The variety of Hostas you can find now is remarkable. Genetic engineering must be fun and profitable.

Overfishing and the Atlantic Fish Crisis (Yes, it is a real crisis, if you like fish either on your plate or in the sea)

The Dark Side of God?

Not from today's Lectionary as usual, but from my Bible group's reading last week.

Mark 10:17

17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ¹⁸Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ ²⁰He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ ²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ ²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’

28 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ ²⁹Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

"I am fine, and we are kicking ass."

A typically cryptic email from a friend's son, a Navy SEAL, on duty somewhere where bad guys are abundant.

"According to Harry Reid, the Kentucky Derby is already lost."

The likeable but Commie Attorney Ron Kubie, on WABC yesterday

I will not use this blog to confess every possibly wrong, evil, or criminal thing I have done. That would be vulgar showing off.

Instead, I want to use this post to claim my victimhood! Maybe I can get some special treatment or power or money for it! (Please wire funds to my Cayman account.) 

It's an old saying that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. In my case, that shift was an intellectual awakening, but I have been mugged and robbed. Here's my tale of woe:

NYC: 1970s, Saturday, a few days before Christmas, around 8 pm, with snow: On way to an Upper West Side Christmas party, walking happily along Morningside Drive in the lovely NY snowy evening, when a scruffy guy of no racial idenity jumps out of the park and sticks a handgun in my stomach, and requests money. Having worked all day driving the horse and buggies in Central Park (my cool college job), I had about $1300 in a wad in my back pocket, but half it it (not including tips) belonged to the stable on W. 48th St. Emptied my front pockets (change, subway tokens, a few crumpled one-dollar bills) and handed it to him. I did not appear wealthy, for sure. Guy takes it, and runs back into the snowy Morningside Park. My body shakes for an hour, until I have had a few drinks and tell the story at the party. In those times, a waste of time to call the cops.

NYC: 1970s, May, Saturday, 11 am. Packing girlfriend's powder-blue Volkswagen convertible for a picnic out at Jones' Beach. Run inside to get blankets for our picnic. Run back out - car gone. Call cops. They say "Fuggedaboutit. Unless you really want to file a complaint. If you really want to bother, you can come down to the precinct and fill out the forms. We will need the VID and the registration, but you're better off just calling your insurance." During the Koch and Dinkins years, there was anarchy. All credit goes to Rudy for the NYC of today.

Boston, 1980s: Sunday night, 11 pm. Three young guys of no racial identity begin following me to my car. I walk faster; they walk faster. I run; they hustle. They are overweight, and one waves what looks like a handgun. I have my keys out, jump into my car, lock the doors and turn on the engine and start off. They kick the bumper as I depart, leaving them in the dust.

NYC: 1980s, Saturday, 5 pm. Return to Upper West Side apartment with friend after buying mountain-climbing equipment. Mainly crampons and ice axes. Find door open. Hear water running, and open bathroom door. Find young person of no racial identity dressed in my roomates' clothes in bathroom. Then find suitcases full of our stuff in the living room. Threatened guy with ice axes, told him to remove clothes and get the f- out before we killed him. Guy says "Don't be gettin no attitude" but makes hasty retreat with only his dirty jeans - no shoes or shirt. Yells from bottom of stairwell "I'll be back, M-f-."  He never did come back. I think we seemed crazier than he was.

Eventually, moved back to New England. All that has happened to me since has been one late-night emptying of the garage - all bikes and fishing gear gone in the morning. Fear-free, but dismaying. But never try to tell me that thieving and white-collar crime are equivalent to ugly crime. They are not equivalent in the degree of personal violation.

Image: 1883, Murder in a railroad car 

Quoted from Towards a Totalitarian Europe, in Brussels Journal:

Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovksy has warned that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. When people who have worked on higher levels in the EU system note similarities as well, it is time people start taking this idea seriously.

I think people are learning that the best way to destroy liberty is incrementally, from within, working in and around democratic processes, rather than by force of revolutionary arms or invading armies. It's always "for your own good" or "for the greater good," and they always take your guns away first, in case people get cranky about being turned into sheep. This isn't paranoid: I don't think these folks are usually malevolent in intent, but malevolent in effect. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and there is a thin line between the Nanny State and authoritarianism, as Tony Blair has amply demonstrated.

Similarly, would-be invaders of nations have learned that it is more effective to do so via immigration than with arms. After all, if a million people try to cross a border with weapons they'll get shot, but if a million cross a border unarmed they will lay out a red carpet for you.

In Boston, they ask, how much does he know? In New York, what is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?

Mark Twain 

If you are a true warming believer, it is time to start buying these bargains. A brilliant investment idea from Dust My Broom.

Get in before the hedge funds discover it! Our experts recommend putting all our your life savings into this unique real estate opportunity! Go for it! Then just bide your time. It might take ten years, or 50 years, or 100,000 years, but, someday, it may be the Yukon Riviera!...or maybe not.

Image: A Palm Tree which recently appeared in a Winnipeg suburb. 

h/t, No Pasaran

Quoted in NRO (h/t, Classical Values), regarding the new documentary Indoctrinate U:

...I was struck by the scientist who said that her students were able to figure out her politics simply by noting what she did not say. Just by teaching her subject, without adding extraneous leftist political harangues, she had revealed herself to be a closet Republican. You won’t believe what happened when the faculty found out about her politics. But the full horror story is almost less disturbing than the reality of that single observation about silence. Particularly in some of the non-science disciplines, it really has gotten to the point where mere silence on matters political is enough to reveal you as the enemy.

Whole short piece at NRO here. Register your interest in seeing the documentary here. See the trailer here.

What does it take to be an academic pariah? Be conservative. Powerline. It's not funny. Deeply disturbing and distressing. Maoist.

Another plug for the Indoctrinate U documentary.

If the main job of education is to transmit foundational knowledge, values, and the culture, it cannot be done without a required core. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) have one. Fun to read. Columbia and Chicago have the best ones I know of, but every college has a potential core curriculum - it's just not required. Only Mom and Dad can require it - and they should. Ask us what we have required, if you're interested. Or maybe I will post it.

ACTA is not pleased with the Vanishing Shakespeare. Their report here.

Freshman Algebra in 1961. Right Wing Nation. I especially like the quiz questions like "How would you approach this problem?" and "Why can't this problem be solved?"

My opinion on high school? No reason for it to be four years. Three is enough to do the job. Trivia question: when and why was American High School increased from three to four years?

And, of course, for grown-ups who feel inadequately educated (that should mean everyone), don't take a course. Use The Teaching Company. I have never been disappointed in them.

Photo: Columbia's Hamilton Hall, across College Walk. Interesting that Columbia College is now the most competitive liberal arts college in the country, and has the largest required core curriculum and the largest number of required courses. That says something. You can thank Rudy and Bloomberg too, who have cleaned up the city.

1. Rolling Stones --- I Can't Get No Cir-cu-lation
2. The Bee Gees--- How Can You Mend a Broken Hip?
3. Bobby Darin--- Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash.
4. Ringo Starr--- I Get By With a Little Help From Depends.
5. Roberta Flack--- The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face.
6. Johnny Nash--- I Can't See Clearly Now.
7. Paul Simon--- Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver
8. The Commodores-- - Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom.
9. Marvin Gaye--- Heard It Through the Grape Nuts.
10. Procol Harem--- A Whiter Shade of Hair.
11. Leo Sayer--- You Make Me Feel Like Napping
12. The Temptations--- Papa's Got a Kidney Stone.
13. Abba--- Denture Queen.
14. Tony Orlando--- Knock 3 Times On The Ceiling If You Hear Me Fall.
15. Helen Reddy--- I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore.
16. Willie Nelson--- On the Commode Again.
17. Leslie Gore--- It's My Procedure and I'll Cry If I Want To.
18. Rolling Stones --- Hey! You! Get Off Of My Lawn.
19. Herman's Hermits--- Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker
and, 20, Herman again --- Baby, Baby, Can You Feel my Heart Beat?