Maggie's Farm

Winston Churchill

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted.

Robert Frost

Powerful, often cantankerous, and protective of their master to a fault (they are known as "one-man dogs"), most of the ones I have known do not take kindly to strangers and need tons of daily exercise - preferably in the water. They love to retrieve heavy logs from heavy surf, preferably with ice in it. I think of them as professional hunting dogs more than as house dogs, but I have heard that some of them can be the latter, especially if female. But they are not really family dogs (I know I may get some flak for uttering this fact, but these are dogs for crusty old baymen, from the era of market hunting). Breed info here at AKC.

Despite the similarity in appearance, the Chessie is a very distant cousin of the Lab, via their common Newfoundland blood, as is clear from the differences in personality. (The Newfie, while a work breed and not a sporting breed, might be my favorite breed in all of dogdom. But they are tough to train, which we humans, in our anthropocentric way, term "stupid." Loveable, cuddly, loving and protective - but big and dumb, and they need about 500 acres for exercise.)

If a Dem were in office, and going to war against Jihad, he would be called the "Franklin Roosevelt" of our generation.

Dr. Bliss, of Maggie's Farm

As our readers know, we ain't got no truck with multiculturalism. We believe that Western, Judeo-Christian, small "L" liberal democratic societies offer the greatest chance for human dignity and freedom, to date, in the history of the world. We hate anything that interferes with those things.

Rick at RWNH says here exactly what we believe at Maggie's - except he says it better. A quote from his piece on the arrest of Moslem terrorists in Canada over the weekend:

If we are fortunate enough to survive listening to some of the better angels of our nature that demand obeisance to an ideology of moral relativism, it will be because there will always be enough of us who refuse to play the diversity games so beloved of that segment of our population that sees strength in dividing us. The game has one simple rule; all societies, and by extension, all religions, creeds, races, ethnicities, and cultures are, at bottom, equal. It would be one thing to believe all were equally bad. That, at least, would represent the cynics view of mankind and hence, a realistic appraisal of the capability for evil in our fellow man.

But no. This multi-cultural madness posits the notion that we are all equally good (well, except white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian males), and that evil is a social construct manufactured by the ruling class to keep the black, brown, and yellow man in their place. If allowed to succeed, the people who are teaching this view to our children in schools and creating mass cultural touchstones in film and television that push this concept will create the perfectly diverse society – the multi-cultural Nirvana found in the grave where everyone will be finally and completely equal.

Image, etc: Who says "dignity never been photographed"? Photo by The Dylanologist. We have the extremely rare piano version of Dylan's Dignity here: dignitypianoversion.mp3 - quick download.

I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

Theodore Roosevelt

(Editor's Note: My error - this piece is out of sequence. If you want to know what this is all about, click the Aliyah Diary category in upper left. We will catch up with his bike trek though the Negev with his next post.)

Apr 5 06: Back among the Persimmons

    
    It is pleasant beneath the Persimmon leaves and the early green
furled buds that to my eye look like leaves, but instead are the ova
fertilized and becoming embryonic beneath the sun.
    After two weeks abroad, I am back in the Kibbutz orchards.
    Moshek always greets me with a broad smile, his bony-muscular grip.
His ancient, cracked leather belt barely holds up sagging work
trousers. I load my bike into the back and we are off. But we leave
the kibbutz, travel across the road, past the train station and I
learn that we have orchards here also. The kibbutz was transected by
the Herzilya road that enters the Coast highway, or continues to the
high-tech Herzilya Pituach. "Pituach", "developing" has an ironic
meaning here, as it is usually used to describe the dusty desert towns
where immigrants were or are placed in the hope of both the
immigrants' and the land's development, with disappointing results for
both people and land. Here, "developing" refers to a narrow rim of
land abutting the sea, a rim of high-tech companies, upscale
restaurants (including a sensuously delicious chocolate restaurant),
and fabulously expensive Rattan furniture boutiques.
    But, no mind, I am in the fields, hear the trains starting up like
oversized jet planes, the highway traffic rushing to busy places.  I
will flick off sappers from the persimmon trees.

All of us at Maggie's accept this honor with great pleasure, which has been bestowed upon us via email by noted Canadian journalist "Ted".

In his electrifying words, which have shaken the entire blogosphere, he says: "You have the most interesting blog in the world, well, maybe except for a few other really good ones that I also check daily."

Alas, our friend Ted is neither an influential blogger, nor a blogger at all, but he had some college and rebuilds truck carburetors. You'd be surprised how many trucks there are in Winnipeg: the town is one giant truck stop with a fine S.I.R store just down the road from the MacDonald's, next to the tittie bar and the incredibly busy WalMart. Ted writes a bit of poetry on the side (you may have read his "blue-collar modernist" gem in The New Yorker, a deeply spiritual piece which begins: When my girl is on the nag / should I sleep in my car / or go to the bar?) along with the occasional feature piece on local color for the Winnipeg Free Press. Sad to say, local color is a scarce commodity in Winnipeg other than at Pop's Topless Lounge and Pizza. Ted has been known to shoot a Snow Goose or twenty, or more, on a slow day at work - but, in Canada, every day is a slow day at work unless you live in the US suburb called Toronto.

Thank you, Ted, for the honor. We will treasure it always. 

From Alan Jacob's The Narnian:

Transformation is not optional but mandatory for Christians. This was Lewis' consistent position. After all, he had undergone his own transformation, discovering "depth under depth of self-love and self-admiration" and submitting to the life-long discipline of being purged of such sin. We must die in order to live, hate our lives in order to find them, give up what we think of as ourselves in order to gain our true selves. And this is the most difficult of tasks.

Is this news? It's like Dog Bites Man. Of
course, ducks always eat aliens, wherever
they can find them, now that they have no food due to Bush's Global Warming Crisis.  

That's why we see so few inter-galactic aliens around, these days. And so many fat ducks. It's a no-brainer: the ducks are obviously eating up all of the aliens - because of Bush. It doesn't take a scientist to put 1 and 1 together.

What do you expect the ducks to eat? MacDonalds? Poached salmon with dill sauce? Oysters Rockefeller? 

They do not seem to have taken to eating illegal aliens quite yet: give them time to adjust to the jalapeno and cilantro flavors, and they will gobble them up, too.

Image: North America's flamboyant but blood-thirsty Wood Duck, fattened on alien flesh.

For Sale: A lightly-used 2003 36' Hinckley Picnic Boat for sale in Marion, MA. You know you want her: you know you need her. Details, more photos, price, and specs here. The water-jet drive is the second-best part: her lines are the best part. The perfect week-end powerboat. Not cheap.

A Glock with a drum magazine. Perfect for popping rats at the dump, or for protecting your Hinckley Picnic Boat from pirates. Video. 

Image: A Glock 18, 9 mm, alas without drum! Not a powerful person-stopper, but intimidating enough for many routine purposes.

Esolen at Touchstone has written a wonderful piece on the risk that is involved in manliness - the willingness to take risks unto death to do what is needed. One quote:

The humility of risk is perfected in Christ and is, even when marred or hidden by the swagger, essential to natural manhood. The men of all really thriving cultures know that their lives, if truly lived, are not their own. The samurai was taught to relish each day as one won from death, an unexpected boon: For the moment he swears allegiance to his lord, he must consider his life as already forfeit. Thus, he can lay that life down at a nod, whenever the sacrifice should be required.

Men who went down to the sea in ships, Viking marauders or Nantucket whalers, knew well they might never return, yet they did go; and the man on the mizzen in the midst of a storm knew that his life literally hung by a thread, and that many of his fellows in just his situation never saw land again, but without him and his obedience there could be no voyage beyond the calm of a bay. The crewmen on the Titanic held it as their duty, once the iceberg’s devastation had been reckoned, to assume that their lives were lost. Only so could they tax their muscles and their broken hearts to the last stretched fiber, to save as many other souls as they could, particularly women and children.

The lad who carried the flag in the old fields of war was unarmed and most conspicuous, but most necessary for the rallying and ordering of his comrades. He was indispensable in his choosing the honor of being the single man least likely to survive the battle. The man first up the ladder to scale the walls of a besieged city would likely also be the first man dead beneath; but if he does not go, no one goes.

The Spartans at Thermopylae knew they could not hold that pass forever against a Persian army many times their strength, but they held long enough for the Athenians to prepare for the onslaught. And you hold a pass by understanding that your life is not your life. You block the opening. The foe must break through over your dead body.

Read the whole inspiring, true thing. And let me know what you think: Should a man be willing to risk his life in defense of home, hearth, tribe or nation?

Image: Missing Man formation of Air Force F-15s

Not a good place to fall off your water skis. They got some hungry gators there, and they'll really make a mess outta you.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

Shakespeare 

Since our piece this past weekend on savory venison and Jacob and Esau, I have wondered what the woodlands of Israel are like - if there are any left. I have travelled through the woods of Turkey, which are vast, lovely, and largely uninhabited. Mostly pine, it seemed. Mediterranean scrub.

"Very modest woods. Not oaky in the sense of how I think of grand trunks and full leaves. These are rather like the dwarf relatives.  In their shade grow diminutive tulips (brought by the crusaders to Holland, and made famous and larger by the Dutch). These tulips are perhaps the length of your finger, with flowers the breadth of your thumb. Also, one of the national flowers, kaloniot (I don't know the scientific name). These are also perhaps 6 cm high, with delicate red petals and a necklace of yellow inside the flower. Fields of them ruffle in the wind."

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

Abraham Lincoln

Preach the Gospel always, using words if necessary.

St. Francis of Assisi, to his followers (If I had been his editor - God forbid - I would have had him say "using words, only if necessary")

The names of warblers have been changed like crazy over the past few years. This little guy with his raccoon-eyes is now the Common Yellowthroat - not to be confused with the Yellow-throated Warbler, which is rare.

We are now at the end of the warbler migration, as these tiny jewels illegally migrate from Central and South America to their breeding grounds in the north. This common warbler loves to skulk in thick underbrush, especially near water, but his loud, penetrating song gives him away.

Song, and info, here at CLO.

The new DVD of The Producers is selling like hotcakes... I wish it was selling like DVDs.

Mel Brooks, heard on a radio interview on Saturday with Mark Simone.

^{1 John 5: 9-13}

⁹If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.

¹⁰Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. ¹¹And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. ¹³I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Booze is healthful for men, but not for women. Call it "medicine." We do.

Review of the R. Crumb Handbook in NY Review of Books. Hey, Mr. Natural - we miss ya, dude.

Galloway claims it's OK to kill Tony Blair. Or at least understandable. No wonder that this jerk likes Fidelito and Chavez: he is a latent fascist murdering thug himself. Who elects this guy? And also - Blair himself is Left, just not totally loony Left. But close enough for government work.

Why the "hockey stick" is a new low in climate science.

Bow-fishing. The Indians did it, but I did not know people were doing this for sport. I do not like the idea of "snap back". And I wonder how the refraction of the water's surface effects one's view of the target.

Age Warfare? In Britain, as in the US, it's the older folks who have the wealth. So what? Wealth is wasted on the young.