Monday, June 26. 2006
SELF-ESTEEM, n. An erroneous appraisement. CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum — whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum — “I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;” as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made. Those are two from Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary, from Middlebrow, who has a good piece, with good links, on Bierce.
 The Downy Woodpecker comes to mind today because they have a nest outside my front door, in a hole in a big old sugar maple, and the endless and almost annoying, rhythmic squeak squeak squeak of the hungry babies sounds exactly like a bad fan belt.
Found across the entire US and most of Canada, these cute little bug-eaters are far more common than the Hairy Woodpecker, its big brother, and is non-migratory. More about the Downy here, at CLO. Photo borrowed from CLO.
Perhaps, if you understood me, I misspoke. Alan Greenspan
Sunday, June 25. 2006
Another good blog bites the dust. New England Repub - RIP. Running a blog is real work. Life under siege in the New Orleans swamp: Open Democracy. No-one with any sense would live there. 100 Brit soccer fans held by police in Stuttgart. Haha. Not politically correct. Sounds like Dartmouth.
Saturday, June 24. 2006
 Nick at Evangelical Outpost claims that WMDs are simply McGuffins, and that if a nuke were dug up in Saddam's basement, it wouldn't matter.
He got me thinking so much about McGuffins that I know I'll order an Egg McGuffin for breakfast next time. Will I get handed an empty wrapper for $1.99? Who remembers the theft in Psycho?
 Nicotine
Goddess of the murmuring courts,
Nicotine, my Nicotine,
Houri of the mystic sports,
trailing-robed in gabardine,
Gliding where the breath hath glided,
Hidden sylph of filmy veils,
Truth behind the dream is veiléd
E'en as thou art, smiling ever, ever gliding,
Wraith of wraiths, dim lights dividing
Purple, grey, and shadow green
Goddess, Dream-grace, Nicotine.
Goddess of the shadow's lights,
Nicotine, my Nicotine,
Some would set old Earth to rights,
Thou I none such ween.
Veils of shade our dream dividing,
Houris dancing, intergliding,
Wraith of wraiths and dream of faces,
Silent guardian of the old unhallowed places,
Utter symbol of all old sweet druidings,
Mem'ry of witched wold and green,
Nicotine, my Nicotine:
Neath the shadows of thy weaving
Dreams that need no undeceiving,
Loves that longer hold me not,
Dreams I dream not any more,
Fragrance of old sweet forgotten places,
Smiles of dream-lit, flit-by faces
All as perfume Arab-sweet
Deck the high road to thy feet
As were Godiva's coming fated
And all the April's blush belated
Were lain before her, carpeting
The stones of Coventry with spring,
So thou my mist-enwreathéd queen,
Nicotine, white Nicotine,
Riding engloried in their hair
Mak'st by-road of our dreams
Thy thorough-fare. Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972) was indeed an eccentric, self-obsessed, difficult person who died a recluse after finally being released, after many years, from St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Center in Washington. A rebel without a cause. He had been deemed a traitor to the US during WW2. But who knew he was an expert fencer, and W.B. Yeat's fencing coach? Or that he was William Carlos William's college pal at Penn? I didn't. He has always been more influential than read. An "imagist" poet, his definition of the literary image remains the best: "an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time." Bob Dylan learned story-telling from Woody Guthrie, and "imagism" from Rimbaud, Pound, William Carlos Williams,T.S.Eliot, and the old-time bluesmen like Robert Johnson...not putting him in that Pantheon, but he has music, too. 1967 photo from here.
Rackham (1886-1939) is considered the greatest illustrator of all time, illustrating Alice in Wonderland, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Peter Pan, and much more. This is Siegfried and Brunhilde from his Das Rheingold illustrations. 
Friday, June 23. 2006
Just stopped by the neighbors while doing yard work in the twilight and lamplight. They are having a teen party. I said: "If you don't turn that music UP, I am going to call the cops." The Mom said: "We are lucky to have you as a neighbor." Call me Mr. Rogers (who I did love - how could you not?).
 A sporting breed? Historically known as the "Water Dog," the Poodle is a product of Germany and the lowlands, where the poodle's assistance with duck trapping and duck hunting were essential. They were also very effective at fetching ducks from the marshes when they were in the moult. They love marshes and love to get wet and muddy, but do not love deep water and are not born swimmers, so when they chase something in the water, they often look as if they are about to drown. "Poodle" comes from German puddle, for good reason. Call them "Puddle Dogs."
The only challenge in training this brainy breed is the fact that they are more intelligent than most humans. Some are natural pointers; all can be trained to be effective retrievers. Since they are hypo-allergenic, they are becoming more popular as field dogs for the allergy-prone, and some breeders specialize in this.
Ever hear of Biola University? I had not, until I checked out the school where the three guys at Middlebrow teach. New Zapper may abort migraine attacks. Migraine is said to afflict one out of eight. This could be a good thing. Sabine Herold: Pejman hopes she will be the one to save France. Daily Kos rips into The New Republic. Many people posted on this yesterday. Apparently TNR isn't following the Party Line, as defined by Kos. Very strange. Do all Moslems hope for an East-West apocalyptic conflict? Ace thinks so. And is not pleased. Raphael at the Met. The NY Sun is deeply critical of the structure of the show, but says go, anyway. Voodoo economics is working again. Tax cuts dramatically reducing Fed deficit. Alpha Patriot Iraq govt offers insurgents a deal: this is interesting, at Captain Ed Never go for a walk without those poles. The new exercise craze. CSM. They used to call them "walking sticks," and sometimes, "canes."
Thursday, June 22. 2006
 Stolen from Mr. Free Market:
A successful rancher died and left everything to his devoted wife. She was a very good-looking woman and determined to keep the ranch, but knew very little about ranching, so she decided to place an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand. Two cowboys applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk. She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied she decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him around the house than the drunk. He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every day and knew a lot about ranching. For weeks, the two of them worked, and the ranch was doing very well. Then one day, the rancher's widow said to the hired hand, "You have done a really good job, and the ranch looks great. You should go into town and kick up your heels." The hired hand readily agreed and went into town one Saturday night. One o'clock came, however, and he didn't return. Two o'clock, and no hired hand. He returned around two-thirty, and upon entering the room, he found the rancher's widow sitting by the fireplace with a glass of wine, waiting for him. She quietly called him over to her. "Unbutton my blouse and take it off," she said. Trembling, he did as she directed. "Now take off my boots." He did as she asked, ever so slowly. "Now take off my socks." He removed each gently and placed them neatly by her boots. "Now take off my skirt." He slowly unbuttoned it, constantly watching her eyes in the fire light. "Now take off my bra." Again, with trembling hands, he did as he was told and dropped it to the floor. Then she looked at him and said, "If you ever wear my clothes into town again, you're fired."
Wednesday, June 21. 2006
Vanderleun tells the story of how Grace returned him to sanity. "He wasn't in his right mind." American Digest. Would I recommend it if I didn't think it were good?
Kirsh at the New York Sun reviews a new book on Agincourt, A Victory Owed to God, by Barker. Sounds good. Where do they find writers as good and knowledgeable as Kirsh? Anyway, had to include this quote: This story shall the good man teach his son:
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother: be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England, now abed,
Shall think themselves accurst they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
(Here's the whole speech.)
A photo from our Aliyah Diary author's bike trip through the Negev Desert in May. Article below. 
The start of the bike trip through the Negev. May 19 2006 Bike. A punchy, short word. For five days, over 535 kilometers from Jerusalem to Eilat, through the Negev desert, I biked. “Bicycle,” smoother, more fluent, more melifluous begin with a plosive at the lips, then to the sibilant in front of the mouth, ending with the gutteral flowing into the sinuous tongue, which touches its tip lightly to the back of the teeth for the “el.” I rode on a geometric matter of triangles, circles and one comet-like ellipse. With a group dwindling to some 28, I had much time to reflect on this machine’s simplicity, elegance, and because of its minimalist construction, highly responsive to your movements. Before Mies van der Rohe, before the Internationalist movement, bike makers understood “form following function.” Triangles and circles; one ellipse. Its body is almost an isoceles triangle, tipped with one corner of its base facing groundwards, it’s apex facing forwards, beneath your breastbone; from the final corner emerges the saddle post, upon which rests a triangular wedge, a saddle. This is minimalist: a wedge for your pudendum; an irritant for your ischial tuberosities. Sharing the bike’s main triangle’s base is a second triangle, rearwards and angling slightly downwards, its apex culminating in the axle of the rear wheel. From above, you can see that the top side of this rearward triangle splits and forms a narrow triangle, forks for the rear axle. In front, through the apex of the main triangle, travels another very narrow triangle, the front forks, that sit upon and hold firm the front axle. Four triangles make its body; a fifth the saddle.
Continue reading "Guest Author: Aliyah Diary #18: Biking through the Negev Desert"
Fluffernutter under attack in MA. This is worse than the Brits attacking ice cream. Millions of hearty and rugged Yankees, including my family, have been raised on this (disgusting) New England concoction. And Rightly So. My opinion: They can ban fluffernutters when they ban alcohol to politicians. OK? The International Seed Vault. This is my idea of worthwhile international cooperation: making sure that we have seeds from every plant. Wonderful. Marginal Rev. found it.
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own, and depart. Socrates
Tuesday, June 20. 2006
A reader showed us Librivox - free downloads of readings of literature in the public domain, read by volunteers. This is the real use of ipods. Their catalog is not long, yet.
From Psalm 116, posted on Sunday: "The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish." FYI, A brief history of Hell, Sheol, and Gehenna, here.
Or you can just wait, and learn about it when you get there. ("Hell" is from Germanic mythology.)
Judge not, lest ye be judged judgemental. The Owner's Manual
Monday, June 19. 2006
Be patient with Maggie's today. It's a busy morning at the farm: all the chickens need to be milked, and the cows bathed, and the turtles need exercise...and the truck needs a new dihydrogenator. Plus we posted quite a bit over the weekend.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it. John F. Kennedy
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