Maggie's Farm

Along the New England coast, we have mainly Common Terns, some Least Terns, some Roseate and some Forster's Terns if you can ID them, and some Arctic Terns passing through.

Tough to ID them, but their white secondaries are field-marks, plus their blood-red bill. These birds, like Peregrine Falcons, are the great travellers of the world, wintering in Antarctica and breeding in the Arctic. A 25,000-mile migration. I haven't seen one in years, but haven't looked for one either. Have seen them on Cape Cod, taking a rest on their way south.

Not too much known about these fine minnow-munchers, but read more here.

Photo courtesy of P. LaTourette.

"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself."

Proverbs 26

"You cannot be too cynical to understand politics."

The Chairman, a Maggie's Farm contributor

A 1962 Farmall Model Super A.

A collector's item.

Dear Editor.

I feel offended by the Maggys posts about colleges, all the criticizing etc. It makes someone feel like they aren;t good enough if they didnt go to Harvard or UCONN or someplace fancy. I graduated college and I had a good job doing the books at a very important body shop in Waterbury but no benefits but they let me go for no reason even though I had a degree and I had to drive 6o miles to get there, and my mom paid for it by working OT at Kmart for 4 years plus her regular job in the school cafeterai with good benefits because a union job, plus financial aide from the State, and my Dad left for Vegas before they had Foxwoods many years ago, and now I can't find a job anywhere around here even though I'm not afraid of work. That farmer now he is a good guy and sounds like my gramps who was a chicken farmer and a turky farmer which are all big business now and not around here, and your blog is nice but lets get off this college thing. My whole family was very proud to have there first college grad and they had a big party about it at the Lithuanian Hall, and gramps drank some beer and gave a little speech about 3 genertions of Lithuanian farmers in Uncasville CT and now we finally had some education in the family and no more chicken-shit and dirt etc. and he said it in Lithuanian for the old ones and in English too, and about being ready to move to the city like Bridgeport or Boston or Providence or Worsester where the big money and important jobs are. Sorry if this is like a term paper.

Anonymus in Uncasville

Dear A in U:

I am sorry you feel that way. I do happen to know where Uncasville is, in eastern CT. Nice country. We don't want to disparage anyone, unless we do it on purpose. It sounds like college taught you to be easily offended, which is something they are specializing in these days. You sound like a fine young fellow, but a bit self-pitying, and your Mom is great, but it's not like 40 years ago when you could walk down to Wall Street with a freshly-minted degree and at least land a spot for life on the bond desk at Morgan Stanley. If you don't want to move away from your comfort zone in northern CT, then maybe you ought to consider something entrepreneurial or a franchise, etc.

Good luck to you,

Bird Dog

(note from BD: I think this email from Anon. illustrates exactly what is going on. Innocent kids like him get scammed into all sorts of expectations, while street-wise but unwise kids know they're just buying a piece of paper - but it looks better than no piece of paper. It's a damn shame. Soon, we will do a feature on college cheating and plagiarism, when we collect enough true stories to report.)

"My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne."

John Maynard Keynes

Never seen in New England! And never will be.

This Lilac-Breasted Roller, also known as the Rainbow Bird, photographed by Matt Grimes on the Savuti Channel in Botswana last month.

Bird photography is tough. Just try it. This is a very fine shot.

The Poetry Issue

The New Criterion's annual  poetry issue is out, covering Richard Wilbur, Eliot, Lord Rochester, etc.

And including a fine essay on Formalism by poet David Yezzi. Excerpt:

"Today, as I have said, it is not necessary to understand prosody at all in order to write a successful poem in English or to be a successful poet. Still, I can’t help wondering if the art isn’t made poorer by contemporary poets’ self-assured disregard of traditional verse technique. As Brander Matthews himself once famously said: “A gentleman need not know Latin, but he should have at least forgotten it.” Prosody is not far behind Latin in terms of its obsolescence, even within the specialized discipline of poetry. And this goes for readers and critics, as well as for poets."
Read entire here. 

Tour Review

Jon Pareles reviews Dylan's current tour: "His latest band, anchored as it has been since the early 1990's by Tony Garnier on bass, could turn "John Brown," his early-60's song about a shattered soldier, into banjo-picking Appalachian rock, and it could sashay through Mr. Dylan's Tin Pan Alley-flavored "Bye and Bye." It had a violinist, Elana Fremerman, who was joined for keening, soaring twin-fiddle passages by Donnie Herron in "Absolutely Sweet Marie." But its core was in the blues, with Denny Freeman playing jagged guitar solos, George Recile on drums making shuffle beats leap ahead, and the whole band, completed by Stu Kimball on guitar, finding new riffs behind old songs like "Masters of War" - almost a minor-key blues in its latest incarnation - or "All Along the Watchtower." With this band, Mr. Dylan's indictments became both pitiless and exhilarating."

Read entire review.

As you know, Bird Dog, in Vermont it is now Mud Season. They call it Spring down south. But we're just getting into a world of ---ing brown mud, and will be for a couple of months. Gotta be careful where I park my precious Fairlane - could be sucked under the mud by morning, unless there's a good frost. Got my shiny new black Wallmart wellies on every day, and about 50 times a day the mud tries to suck them off. Or does. My old pair had so much duct tape holding them together they looked like silver dancing shoes when I hosed em off, so I finally splurged on new. $19.99. Made in Thailand. But if I turn into a shopper, please shoot me. Well, too muddy to plow anything this early of course, still got standing water, but we got the equipment mostly tuned up and greased and ready to go. That Ford machine is burning oil like a -----, but life ain't never perfect, is it? When it burns as much oil as gas, I will worry. We'll do #1, #2, and #3 and #5 in silage corn as usual, but as I said we'll do #4 in red clover this year and give it a rest and fatten my venison and my turkeys. Plus the hay fields which I think are fairly good for this year, seeing as we redid a couple of them last year with timothy and they are beginning to green up nice. And no, those are not two fat bucks hanging in the dark corner of the barn - those are sheep - lamb. Somebody give em to me, I forget who. But no bear. Bad luck. Coulda had a few turkeys but who wants a body-shot turkey? Nobody.  And I think I see a bit of a rain leak in one of the silos. We may have to call Art the silo man down in Rutland. Seth says he can fix it. I doubt he can.

(note from Bird Dog - silage is the corn (maize to non-Americans) - stalks and all, that sort-of ferments in the solo and provides winter food for dairy cattle.)

In the lonely night
In the blinking stardust of a pale blue light
You're comin thru to me in black and white
Where we were made of dreams

You're blowin down the shakey street
You're hearing my heart beat
In the record breaking heat
Where we were born in time

Not one more night, not one more Kiss
Not this time, Babe, no more of this
Takes too much skill, takes too much will
It's too revealing

You came you saw, just like the law
You married young, just like your Ma
You tried and tried, you made me slide
You left me reelin with this feelin

from Born in Time, by Bob Dylan
Buy the book, buy the CD

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day;
teach a man to fish, and he'll spend the rest of his life on boats drinking beer.

Anon.

Blogthings

Cool stuff. What Kind of English Do You Speak? I turned out 40% General American, 40% Yankee, and 10% Dixie. Try it. Plus their other entertaining quizzes.

Ernie Pyle's Death of the Captain

The great war correspondent, on Jan 10, 1944, here. With thanks to Michelle Malkin.

Style Wars

"Difficult art"? Spare me that condescension. I ain't stupid, and I'm not rich enough to be taken in by art industry hype. I like sporting art and I like Picasso, but if I could have one picture to look at daily, it would be a Cezanne. Any Cezanne. But conceptual art - gimme a break. Most of it could be said in one trite sophomoric sentence. And I did see Bouys, or however you spell it, live in Greenwich Village years ago. He wore a fedora and a raincoat, and seemed psychotic. James Panero previews the NY Art Fairs:

"Anti-aesthetics is the new aesthetic. Untraditional materials, styrofoam for one, stands in for technical innovation. While we once complained that “my kid could paint that,” now it’s a problem if your kid couldn’t paint it, stack it, bash it, eat it, heckle it, play it on his Gamecube, tune into it on the Spice Channel, or fingerpaint it in his sleep."

Nice, balanced piece here on the contemporary art scene - which means New York.

Political Style

And, speaking of style, Jay Cost has a good point here with which I strong agree. Style is important in national politics, and Hillary, for one, ain't got none. They used to say, in the old days, that people vote for the person they want in their living room every night - meaning on the MSM.

Walmart Style

How many times have you guys seen a sweet-lookin lady in the supermarket, and just longed to say hi, but chickened out? And how many times have you gals seen a single-looking hunk in the same place, and yet did nothing? Oh, man - the wasted opportunities in life. Big ouch. But finally, it seems, at least Walmart has made itself an official dating destination. Here.

The Truth, Finally

Read this! That smart Dartmouth boy John Hinderaker gets it. What the Left really wants, but cannot get via the ballot, so must get via the courts. No wonder the court issue is such a hot one - the Left wants the courts to run the country because they have given up on the voters. This from a recent Yale conference on the Constitution:

"It is time for progressives to set a constitutional agenda for the 21st Century. In 1987-88, the Reagan Justice Department produced a white paper known as "The Constitution in 2000" which, by taking a long view rather than focusing on the immediate issues of the day, was immensely successful in influencing the Constitution under which we now live. If progressives are to rehabilitate that Constitution, they must now, more than ever, articulate constitutional ideals capable of inspiring the next generation."

Note that it is a "constitutional agenda," not a legislative agenda. This is WRONG WRONG WRONG! If I had any slightest doubt about the rule change to end court-nominee filibusters, my doubts are now erased, sort-of, mostly...

John's essential piece here.

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

Winston Churchill

Ratzinger's Homily

The focus of the homily is on Friendship with Christ. Thanks to Hugh Hewitt:

CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER

HOMILY AT THE MASS FOR THE ELECTION OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF

At this hour of great responsibility, we hear with special consideration what the Lord says to us in his own words. From the three readings I would like to examine just a few passages which concern us directly at this time.

The first reading gives us a prophetic depiction of the person of the Messiah - a depiction which takes all its meaning from the moment Jesus reads the text in the synagogue in Nazareth, when he says: "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (Lk 4,21). At the core of the prophetic text we find a word which seems contradictory, at least at first sight. The Messiah, speaking of himself, says that he was sent "To announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God" (Is 61,2). We hear with joy the news of a year of favor: divine mercy puts a limit on evil - the Holy Father told us. Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God. Christ's mandate has become our mandate through priestly anointing. We are called to proclaim - not only with our words, but with our lives, and through the valuable signs of the sacraments, the "year of favor from the Lord." But what does the prophet Isaiah mean when he announces the "day of vindication by our God"? In Nazareth, Jesus did not pronounce these words in his reading of the prophet's text - Jesus concluded by announcing the year of favor. Was this, perhaps, the reason for the scandal which took place after his sermon? We do not know. In any case, the Lord gave a genuine commentary on these words by being put to death on the cross. Saint Peter says: "He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross" (1 Pe 2,24). And Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians: "Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree,' that the blessing of Abraham might be extended to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." (Gal 3, 13s).

The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in his body and on his soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favor meet in the paschal mystery, in Christ died and risen. This is the vindication of God: he himself, in the person of the Son, suffers for us. The more we are touched by the mercy of the Lord, the more we draw closer in solidarity with his suffering - and become willing to bear in our flesh "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Col 1, 24).

Blogs

Wondering how folks find the time to keep up with their Really Big Blogs, like Powerline and LGF. Must take hours every day to produce those things. Must be an obsession or ego trip or writing compulsion or whatever. Or probably just a wholesome hobby. But don't quit, guys - we rely on ya. Stay crazy.

Here, we just do what we can, semi-sanely, with good humor. But the b-world is wonderful, democracy in action, a writing universe for the unpublished and unpublishable.

What a wonderful world !

"The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without it there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."

Benjamin Rush

Monitors

Holy Cow. I always thought the computer was the important thing. Really like my new Dell flat whatever 17 or 20" monitor or whatever it is. It makes 8 pt. type legible at a distance. Dell slams you for the height-adjustable feature, but I don't know why they bother making them without it. Who wants to have to look up at a screen? I am always behind the tech curve. If you are too, check here.

The Holy Grail of Ancient Greece

Not a minor story. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, rescued from the dump, have had a breakthrough, with possibly early versions of the Gospels, not to mention Homer, Hesiod, the Greek playwrights, etc.:

"Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed."

Read entire here.

A rarity in New England, Julian took this photo on Saturday in Deep River, CT. First record in 20 years. A hell of a photo. This bird is lost - they tend to be Fla. breeders, but are mainly South American birds. Read more about this beautiful hawk here.