Maggie's Farm

Inexpensive, good stocking stuffers: Vt. Country Store. Don't forget their "Tired Old Ass Soak."

Also, I like Loolo Scarves. From Candanandada.

And an adult stocking stuffer - a necessary handy Breathalyzer - when to call a cab and when to let your "over-served" friend drive you home from Archie's so you don't get the ticket. The cops don't always agree with us when we tink tank we cn driv perfkly  perfckly wll wall wull. Buy one for everyone you care about who likes to celebrate in a hearty manner.

Another adult stocking stuffer - yuk - as essential as the above - the famous Hammacher-Schlemmer Nose Hair Trimmer - the best in the business.

And one important note: In the midst of holiday chaos, be careful of your dogs.

Finally - A Merry Christmas, and a Happy Holidays, from Opie! To make the most of it all, see my instructions below:

Umberto Eco on Christmas, God, Death, Shopping, Money, etc.:

"G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it - he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.

The "death of God", or at least the dying of the Christian God, has been accompanied by the birth of a plethora of new idols. They have multiplied like bacteria on the corpse of the Christian Church -- from strange pagan cults and sects to the silly, sub-Christian superstitions of The Da Vinci Code. " 

"Corpse"? I don't think so. But read entire in the Telegraph.

Travel to Cuba

Cuba : Please say it ain't so. As soon Ian Shrager walks in ,the charm will walk out of Havana. Castro may be responsible for many things but turning Cuba into a Disney World is not one of them. It is too soon to know what will transpire when Fidel dies and he will die, but letting the American tourist trade in will not necessarily be the remedy for the Cubans. read entire article here:

"I was completely enchanted with the country," he says. "I was completely taken with it. To me what was interesting was Old Havana, like Venice, a special place frozen in time.And politics aside, Castro, he's the last great world leader on the world stage. He is the last one left, and to me that adds to the legend. "My customers are waiting for Cuba to happen," Shrager says.Click here: http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000067/006713-p.htm

1. El Al shows record profits. Must be the folks reading the Tuesday Aliyah Diary and heading to Israel for a visit.

2. Try this one:
   1- Go to www.google.com    2- Type in "french military victories", without the quotes
    3- Instead of hitting "Search" hit "I'm feeling Lucky"
    4- Tell your friends before the people at Google fix it

Stumbling around your wine cellar this morning?

Here are some ideas.

Go Dog, Go

An automatic ball-thrower for the pooch. Sort of like a tennis ball machine. I disapprove, on principle, not on practicality. The thing is here.

The Latin Beat: Chavez

The situation in Latin America is dire indeed. We are witnessing the rise of the new 'Castro' if allowed Hugo Chavez will finance the overthrow of any remaining democracies and perpetuate the communist ideal of the 'state' mentality. Let us remember that most of the citizenry in Latin America are uneducated and below poverty levels, as was the case in 1959 when Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista. Castro did so under the pretense of ridding the country of a corrupt dictator and then transforming himself into a dictator significantly worse. Now, some 40 years later, Cuba is a crumbling country filled with hopelessness and despair. The beautiful colonial architecture is without chance of being repaired and returned to its former glory. The people are unemployed and without food. Education is perhaps the only benefit left and without lights, books and basic materials even this program is a joke. If given the chance to flee most would. How can Americans sit by, watch and read about a leader who potentially threatens the US by causing ill will throughout an entire continent? I suggest we sit up and take notice because in the Americas they are once again singing the praises of Che.

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, sporting a Cuban national baseball cap, told a stadium full of protesters that the free trade accord of the Americas was dead and urged resistance to "American imperialism." 

Crash on the Levee

From NYT:

"The senators asked the engineering experts whether the corps should be trying right now to design and rebuild the levees to resist the strongest storms, those of Category 5. They replied that it would be best to work in stages, starting with the goal of resisting Category 3 storms, a level that can be attained relatively quickly. Any broader plan, they suggested, should include restoring the wetlands that create a protective buffer against oncoming storms."

Read entire. 

Grit vs. Talent and Brains

From Psychology Today:

"In a series of provocative new studies at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers find that the gritty are more likely to achieve success in school, work and other pursuits -- perhaps because their passion and commitment help them endure the inevitable setbacks that occur in any long-term undertaking. In other words, it's not just talent that matters but also character. "Unless you're a genius, I don't think that you can ever do better than your competitors without a quality like grit," says Martin E. P. Seligman, director of the university's Positive Psychology Center.

Indeed, experts often speak of the "10-year rule" -- that it takes at least a decade of hard work or practice to become highly successful in most endeavors, from managing a hardware store to writing sitcoms -- and the ability to persist in the face of obstacles is almost always an essential ingredient in major achievements. The good news: Perhaps even more than talent, grit can be cultivated and strengthened."

Read entire.

Guatemalans

Hedgehogs and Foxes

What are the chances of two articles in one week both referring to Archilochus and Isiah Berlin writing on Tolstoy's philosophy invoking the hedgehog/fox idea upon the intellectual world?  

From Thomas Albert Howard's review of John Lukacs Book: A Hedgehog and a Fox, Remembered Past: On History, Historians, and Historical Knowledge:

"Invoking an obscure line from the Greek poet Archilochus, Isaiah Berlin made famous
in an essay on Tolstoy’s philosophy of history the distinction between the hedgehog
and the fox. “The fox knows many things,” Archilochus wrote, “but the hedgehog
knows one big thing.” Some intellectuals are foxes, in Berlin’s interpretation, capable
of mastering “scattered or diffused [ideas], moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences.” Intellectual hedgehogs, by contrast,
“relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent,” which
derives from “a single, universal, organizing principle.” Part fox and part hedgehog,
always intellectually engaging, often unpredictable, John Lukacs bears witness to
the usefulness of Berlin’s distinction—and its limitations." Read the rest: "http://www.mmisi.org/ir/40_02/howard.pdf

This piece from last week's Art section of the New York Times:

"The philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously divided writers and thinkers into foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes are interested in many things, hedgehogs in one. Foxes move from one problem to another. Hedgehogs dig deep. Dante and Proust were hedgehogs. Molière and Pushkin were foxes. Einstein was a hedgehog. Shakespeare was a fox."

Elizabeth Murray is a hedgehog. Stirring Up a Commotion on Canvas - New York Times

Something Sweet from Africa

The music of Youssou N'Dour. I own some and highly recommend.  Review here.

"It is worth noting that the person most responsible in the past for subverting the will of Congress to end travel restrictions in Conference Committee, Tom DeLay, has his own problems these days--and Senator Frist and the White House are not in much better shape to influence what takes place on Capitol Hill.

We will see if the congress budges on this one or the battle of egos across the aisles and sea continues even the embargo no longer makes any sense. As for me, I have packed my bags and called Cubanacan." 

The Mayan Civilization

From Roger Sandall:

"Let’s take Jared Diamond by the horns. He would like us to believe that the decline and fall of the Maya was a tragic loss, and a sadly overgrown sculpture in the jungle ornaments the cover of his book Collapse.

But I don’t care if the Maya civilization did collapse. I don’t think we should shed a single retrospective tear. It might be interesting to know how or why it fell—whether from war or drought or disease or soil exhaustion—but I don’t much care about that either. Because quite frankly, as civilizations go, the Mayan civilization in Mexico didn't amount to much."

Provocative and not politically-correct. Read entire. 

And more on the trials of modern-day Mayans in Guatemala, here.

Harold Pinter is 75

Piece here.

The Latin Beat

An unregistered agent of Chavez at Columbia University? Boyd

Chavez' bumbling: "Somebody should create a new international award for economic incompetence -- which could be called the Lebon Prize, or Nobel spelled backward -- and give it to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez." Miami Herald

The National Review turns 50

Excellent piece in Claremont Inst., by Uhlmann, reviewing the past 50 years of the conservative movement, and especially the role of William F. Buckley, now 80:

(The NR's) subsequent success, which within 20 years had moved the center of American politics noticeably to the right, tends to obscure the audacious, some might say quixotic, character of the original program. The cultural and political milieu of the 1950s, after all, offered little evidence to sustain the hope that an explicitly conservative movement was necessary, desirable, or even possible. Did anyone besides the Buckleyites seriously believe that socialism would come creeping in on the little cat feet of Eisenhower Republicanism? Undaunted, the new conservatives responded with the cheerful determination of The Little Engine That Could. If the body politic was ignorant of or indifferent to threats deemed palpably dangerous by the editors of National Review, it would simply have to be instructed.

Read entire.

Two problems with Airplanes

News Flash: airplanes linked to global warming. I guess we never thought of that one before:

Citing the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, Reuters said aviation causes 3.5 percent of “man-made global warming.”  This figure is forecast to spike to 15 percent by 2050.Click here: http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000059/005938-p.htm 

Dymphna on Air Safety: "It's all for show". Read this before your next flight. My links aren't working: Click here: Gates of Vienna: It’s All for Show