Maggie's Farm

Jake was dying. His wife sat at the bedside. He looked up and said weakly:
"I have something I must confess."
"There's no need to, " his wife replied."No," he insisted, "I want to die in peace. I slept with your sister, your best friend, her best friend, and your mother!"
"I know," she replied, " now just rest and let the poison work."

Last time, we did the Gordon Setter. The English Setter is a more popular favorite, an excellent family dog, and the finest of gun dogs.

Setters are members of the Spaniel family, with Spanish ancestry, as the name implies. Like most modern dog breeds, their blood lines were established in the late 1800s, but in the case of the English Setter, there are two lines: one bred for appearance and one for the field.

All setters retrieve, track, and point with a "set," a behavior which originally is thought to have been bred for bird trapping. More about the English Setter here.

The entire Cartoon War was staged by radical Imam-provocateurs. So it appears. But how many ignorant Moslems, without the internet, in the Middle East will ever learn that piece of the story? Makes CNN look like even bigger buffoons that we already thought they were.

One of the con-artist frauds here. The cartoons here. Even Dershowitz gets it, but the press doesn't.

Update: Wretchard summarizes all of the key events and issues here.

The guest author of our Aliyah Diary, Nathan (who has never fired a gun in his life) received this letter last week after expressing an interest in joining the Civil Guard Bicycle Unit. He will do it:

Dear Natan,

In terms of moving forward in becoming a Civil Guard Member and
joining the Bicycle Unit, here are the steps:

Application Form 6012 -   Please fill out both pages and fax it back to me. You can also pass on a hard copy to me or rescan it and email it. This is the first step.

Background Check -  After receiving and processing Form 6012, the police will conduct a cursory background check on you.

Rights and Responsibilities Lecture(s) -   Should the background check not find anything disqualifying, you will be invited to Rights and Responsibilities Lecture(s). These cover issues such as: legal authority, conducting operations, detaining suspects, making arrests, using communications equipment etc. This information is taught lecture style in groups of between 1 and 3 classroom meetings. After the last meeting, you are "sworn in" and receive a temporary Civil Guard ID. This allows you to go unarmed on patrols with more senior and experienced officers. Keep in mind that most of what you need to know you learn on the job.

Firearms Training -   You will be invited to the next scheduled firearms training sessions. They usually include a night-time classroom training session (dry fire) and a daytime actual shooting qualification at a firing range (wet).  The dry fire classroom training is usually held at an area school where you are acquainted with the weapons, view their field stripping and learn the basics of safety and marksmanship. General Civil Guards people train only on the .30 caliber M1 Carbine.  Bicycle and other special unit volunteers also train on pistols like the 9 mm FN Mk.III and the 22 caliber Beretta 71 (and sometimes on the Micro-Galil Assault rifle
though this weapon has little use in the bicycle unit). This extra instruction may require you staying on after the general Civil Guards
have completed their training on the carbine. I have prepared some
English language guidebooks for using each of these weapons which I will give to you at the proper time. The "dry-fire" training is followed within usually less than a week by "wet" training either at a commercial range (indoor) or at the regional police firing range (outdoor) in Bareket.  You will be required to demonstrate some (minimal) proficiency on the weapons (Rifles at about 30 meters, Pistols at about 10 meters) in order to be qualified to carry aweapon. You must repeat weapons training at least once every two years.

On the Job Training - You will be paired with senior and experienced officers (starting with me) for the first six months of your service, during which as a rule you will ride unarmed.

Thanks and Shavua tov,

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Friedrich Nietsche

Map via Michelle. Should have linked it but just had to post it. The grey color is the (thus far) vast area of dhimmitude. This is not the end of this kind of business. Just the beginning. Note the Brits in the dhimmi column.

Read the Analyst's piece on Internet Porn here.

Read the Laconic Yankee Farmer's non-laconic final post here.

Read our piece on How out to Lunch is Europe? here.

"Citizens assemble with the sole goal of declaring that they disapprove of the course of government. To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it is the greatest business and, so to speak, the only pleasure that an American knows...An American does not know how to converse, but he discusses; he does not discourse, but he holds forth. He always speaks to you as to an assembly."

Democracy in America, 1831

^{Psalm 147, 1-12}

¹Praise the Lord! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
²The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
³He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.
⁴He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.
⁵Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.
⁶The Lord lifts up the downtrodden; he casts the wicked to the ground.
⁷Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre.
⁸He covers the heavens with clouds, prepares rain for the earth, makes grass grow on the hills.
⁹He gives to the animals their food, and to the young ravens when they cry.
¹⁰His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
¹¹but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.
¹²Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!

As the cartoon nonsense spins out of control, resulting in destruction of property and expressions of religious hatred and intolerance, any blogger worthy of the name must have an opinion.

Our opinion is that people, in the "free world," have and should have the freedom to mock, criticize, and satirize anyone and anything: Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Indians, atheists, whites, blacks, hispanics, Poles, Norwegians, and every other human category. All are fair game.

We do not particularly enjoy it when such things are done in rude, crude or socially unacceptible ways, but that's just too bad: hypersensitivity is the problem of the hypersensitive and, as they say in AA, "Feelings aren't facts." Besides humor, expressions of anger and hate need to be permitted. When Julian Bond terms all Republicans "Nazis," some folks just laugh, some are upset, and some are deeply disturbed. But freedom means freedom to be a dumb jerk, and to express hate, however loony or untrue. Thankfully, we have the freedom to talk back and to satirize such malignant idiocy, and to expose them as wacko fools, as has been done with the KKK.

We've been known to get a little juvenile on these pages, ourselves, with the occasional TR ("therapeutic rant"), etc. I thought that Piss Christ was hideously offensive, and a childish effort to get attention by being "controversial". I find the Moslem newspapers' anti-semitic cartoons equally offensive. Were those Danish cartoons offensive? Only mildly so, if you have a chip on your shoulder and are looking for a fight and have no sense of humor. "Orchestrated tantrums," in the words of Gates of Vienna. But words and pictures are not action. Sticks and stones...

Free speech means we all have to be willing to be offended, rightly or wrongly. The Moslem world clearly does not widely share that ideal, and exists in a different, quasi-medieval culture with entirely different ideals and rules: a theocratic, autocratic culture in which wife-beating is normal practice, in which hanging is an acceptable punishment for gays, beheading the punishment for adultery, and the word of the Prophet, however interpreted, is the Law. Nor do they make the sharp distinction between speech and action that we do, and neither did Jesus.

They are not on the same page that we are on: we left it 400 years ago with The Enlightenment. No-one enjoys having their world-view changed: it entails both a loss, and an unclear future. There are plenty of Americans who, even now, resent the effects of the Enlightenment, regardless of how much we are the beneficiaries of it.

The Moslem Middle-East, it seems to me, is in the position of resisting our Western Enlightenment. All of our ideals - political freedom, democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, hedonism - are felt to be a threat to a long-established world view. What surely makes it feel worse is that these ideas are imports - not home-grown. However, the outside Western influence will prove irresistable in time - just see all of those satellite dishes on the tops of apartment buildings in Tehran. TV, the Internet, and the shrinking world will sooner or later, for better or worse, change the culture of the Middle East. They are experiencing a reaction, similar to our historical Inquisition and Counter-Reformation. But to understand the European Counter-Reformation is not to excuse it. And to understand the cultural threat felt in the Middle East by Western ideas does not to excuse barbaric behavior.

Should we respect other cultures? I see no reason why we should. Respect, like trust, is a precious gift and not a casual commodity. Should we be interested in understanding other cultures? Sure, if we are curious, but just understanding our own is the work of a lifetime or two. Should we tolerate intolerance expressed in destructive action? Of course not. Should we stand for the freedom to say dumb and cruel things? Sure. Should we speak against dumb and cruel statements? Of course. Should we be intimidated? Never. Do we have things worth fighting for? Damn right we do. And not only that, but if the Jihadists will leave us alone, they are free to live however they chose, in their own homeland. Just don't tread on me.

Image on top from yesterday's "protest" in London. Is such a threat of violence covered under freedom of speech? Lawyers know the answer to that.

The catalogs are springing up like crocuses.

For fruit trees, berries, and misc, we like Miller Nurseries.

For unusual and interesting plants, we like Wayside Gardens. Some say they aren't what they used to be, but who is?

For large scale plantings for wildlife, we like Musser Forests.

For perennials, we like White Flower Farm, but they ain't cheap.

Jackson and Perkins is an old stand-by for roses of all sorts, but there are many growers of antique roses these days - Google antique roses. Vintage roses are tougher than modern ones, and they smell like roses. Here's one source.

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Anon.

Unbelieveable. Whatever happened to "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me"? This is pathetic. And it would never happen if the cartoons were about Roman Catholics, would it?

I am not a Marxist.

Karl Marx

It has been twenty years since Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death was published. Postman's son Andrew has written the introduction to the 20th Anniversary Edition of the still-fresh book, which might be more applicable in 2006 than it was in 1985. Some quotes from the Intro:

Substantive as this book is, it was predicated on a “hook”: that one British writer (George Orwell) with a frightening vision of the future, a vision that many feared would come true, was mostly off-base, while another British writer (Aldous Huxley) with a frightening vision of the future, a vision less well-known and feared, was scarily on target. My father argued his point, persuasively, but it was a point for another time – the Age of Television. New technologies and media are in the ascendancy.

Fortunately – and this, more than anything, is what I think makes Amusing Ourselves to Death so emphatically relevant – my father asked such good questions that they can be asked of non-television things, of all sorts of transforming developments and events that have happened since 1985, and since his death, and of things still unformed, for generations to come (though “generations to come” may someday mean a span of three years). His questions can be asked about all technologies and media.

What happens to us when we become infatuated with and then seduced by them? Do they free us or imprison us? Do they improve or degrade democracy? Do they make our leaders more accountable or less so? Our system more transparent or less so? Do they make us better citizens or better consumers? Are the trade-offs worth it? If they’re not worth it, yet we still can’t stop ourselves from embracing the next new thing because that’s just how we’re wired, then what strategies can we devise to maintain control? Dignity? Meaning?

Read entire at Pressthink

To accompany the
charming photo of our 
Southern Belle, here is
Flatt and Scruggs with the Ballad of Jed Clampett (both fast and slow picking versions - no download needed).

And the lyrics here. 

A hearty welcome to readers who have been kindly linked over to Maggie's by friendly blogs this week.

A twelve-second perusal of
Maggie's Farm will make it clear
that our approach to blogging is to follow our noses. It is not possible to categorize us, other than as "eclectic."  That's the goal.

To get corny about it, the amazing variety of stuff that life in this astonishing Creation presents to us is our beat, limited of course by time, as we all have plenty of responsibilities: herding sheep, flushing pheasants, being cuddly lapdogs, etc. However, no doubt our "traditionalist, centrist" approach to issues comes through loud and strong.

If you are a new or recently-new reader, click a category to get a sense of the variety of game we fetch for you, every day, for free.

One Year Old. And we act like it, at times. Hoist a pint with us, mateys. It must be cocktail hour somewhere on the planet.

A Birthday Present? Readers: Please bookmark us - show us the loooove. Bloggers: Blogroll us - show us that you care. And many thanks to those of you who have done so. The validation warms our doggy hearts.

And, since you insist, we'll keep on going - but only as long as you read us, and send us to your friends.  We want to grow logarithmically and organically, not arithmetically. Cheers!

You are only young once, but you can be immature for a lifetime.

John P. Grier