Maggie's Farm

A coronal mass ejection should hit us tonight - a little gift from Mr. Sun. Could be a nice aurora, in Yankeeland. 

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

Norman Vincent Peale

Due to overwhelming spam attacks, our comments are closed for a while.

Update: back on. We weren't the only ones to deal with that spam storm.

Our blog friend Dr. Sanity just cannot lighten up, even during Christmastime. One quote from a new passionate piece which I wish appeared on the NYT Op-Ed page:

The rise of neoconservatism represents the only modern intellectual counter and the only known antidote to the infection of postmodernism and its resultant toxic effects on philosophy, rhetoric, and politics.

In order to succeed in undoing and undermining the clear and unambiguous evidence of socialism's and communism's utter human toxicity, the totalitarians of the political left had to undermine nothing less than reality, reason, and truth. Furthermore, they had to deconstruct and invalidate human consciousness, making sure that the everyone understood that the only apparatus available to humans for perceiving reality--the mind--was completely unreliable, and that the evidence of the senses must therefore be discounted. This intellectual strategy resulted in a pervasive cultural relativism and intellectual nihilism that permeated all aspects of society and intellectual thought. Words and language were redefined to mean whatever one wanted; history was deconstructed--ostensibly to expose it's lies, but really to render it meaningless; and the ideas and values that were the foundation of Western civilization were mocked and shown by postmodern "logic" to be no better than any other random ideas.

It is painful for many old-time ornery New Hampshire Yankees to watch their state change.

But there are less of those folks now, relatively speaking. Two-thirds of NH residents were born outside of the state, and arrive with different values, and different politics.

It's a sad thing for other Yankees, too, who have counted on NH to hold the fort for traditional Yankee values of endurance, thrift, honor, independence, grumpiness, and the Live Free or Die spirit which basically wants to tell the govt to f-off.

Story about it in the CSM.

Image is Robert Frost's farmhouse.

How did any kids in the UK make it to adulthood without the help of The School Food Trust?

A quote from Battle of the Lunchbox at Spiked:

So, we’re apparently so useless we can’t even work out when and how to make our kids’ lunches but somehow we have the time to wander around sourcing a variety of fruits. Nor does it stop at fruit. There are all sorts of interesting breads we should search for, too. Examples given to put in our children’s lunchboxes are pittas, bagels, baguettes, ciabatta, rice crackers, rolls, wraps - anything but the humble white loaf which somehow has assumed the moral status of heroin.

Your very generous tax dollars at work, Brits! But what if your kids don't like kiwis?

Never get into fights with assholes. They drag you down to their level, then they beat you through superior experience.

via Jay Tea 

Forbidden Hollywood. Loophole's essay is good. I don't know any of the movies.

Unchanging weather is a human right? Moonbattery . Whoever invented the term "Watermelon" had it right - Green on the outside, Red on the inside.

Serious colleges. HH. Good to see the great University of Chicago on there.

Students in Tehran getting feisty. Good. Gateway

Let us consider, my lords, that arbitrary power has seldom or never been introduced into any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step, lest the people should see its approach. The barriers and fences of the people's liberty must be plucked up one by one, and some plausible pretences must be found for removing or hoodwinking, one after another, those sentries who are posted by the constitution of a free country, for warning the people of their danger. When these preparatory steps are once made, the people may then, indeed, with regret, see slavery and arbitrary power making long strides over their land; but it will be too late to think of preventing or avoiding the impending ruin.

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, to the House of Lords in 1737 (though reported rather later). The above borrowed in its entirety from Samizdata

'Nice' can’t confront this world’s sources of pain. Niceness makes people agreeable, not good. Somehow we have mistaken niceness for righteousness.

From No More Christian Nice Guy, by Paul Coughlin

Britain's clever triangulator, who learned how to do it at the feet of the master, Bill Clinton, delivered a much-appreciated speech on immigration. Excerpts, plus the whole thing, on video at Flopping Aces (h/t, Sisu).

But was it really a speech which abandoned the notion of multiculturalism? Auster doubts it, as do I. I think he is trying to straddle the fence. Nevertheless, the speech was right. But like all talented politicians, you never know what they believe - if anything: everything they say is part of a game.

Addendum. Our commenter says:

Paul to the Philippians, 1: 1-11

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: ²Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³I thank my God every time I remember you, ⁴constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, ⁵because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

⁷It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.

⁹And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight ¹⁰to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, ¹¹having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Yes, it is a Giotto

A quote from one of our favorites, who wrote one of our favorite books (h/t, Anchoress, via Maxed Out). No comment needed:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.

It’s true, I was celebrating. Bloody hell, I had a glass of champagne in my hand – so what?

Ms Hage-Ali, who was attacked for drinking while Moslem after being named Miss NSW Young Austrailian of the Year. Blair

The first church? 4th Century Church of the Ark found on West Bank

How about polygamy? Evangelical Outpost

Ancient prayers, at Real Meal. One example (Origen, 185-254):

Lord, inspire us to read your Scriptures and meditate upon them day and night. We beg you to give us real understanding of what we need, that we in turn may put its precepts into practice. Yet we know that understanding and good intentions are worthless, unless rooted in your graceful love. So we ask that the words of Scriptures may also be not just signs on a page, but channels of grace into our hearts. Amen.

On Advent, from Frederick Buechner's Whistling in the Dark (h/t, It Takes a Church):

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton.  In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen.  You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you've never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart…The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.

Last Night I Drove a Car 

Last night I drove a car
not knowing how to drive
not owning a car
I drove and knocked down
people I loved
...went 120 through one town.

I stopped at Hedgeville
and slept in the back seat
...excited about my new life.

A brief bio of Corso at Wiki.

Consider this to be a free advt for People's Cube:

We never enter the Weblog Awards thing, so you cannot vote daily for us. Not that it's a bad thing, but we just don't do it. Like golf. It's just not a Yankee thing, I guess. We aren't a finalist either, despite the logo below - go vote for some of the other fine blogs. I enjoy throwing a vote or two to some of my favorites. In fact, I enjoy all of the blogs on our blogroll, and quite a few which are not on it.

He calls himself a "heretic." One quote:

He also cautioned that people may be kidding themselves if they imagine it is possible to stabilize the Earth’s climate.

“The biosphere was constantly changing in the past and it will be constantly changing in the future,” Dyson said. “The idea that we can put a stop to change is a dangerous illusion.”

Also:

“All our fashionable worries and all our prevailing dogmas will probably be obsolete in 50 years,” Dyson said.

More from his speech at Synthstuff. We are in very good company if we see it as he does. Wish he would speak out more.