Maggie's Farm

Make a difference in the world. Be a gender-bender.

Be there, or be square.

Would you, as an employer, hire a grad who majored in "Women's Studies"?

I interview for our firm, and I certainly never would do so. For Members Only: Feminism on Campus Today

I heard on the radio this morning that the US Postal Service has applied for another rate increase in postage stamps.

The reason is that business is down, mainly due to people paying bills online and people communicating via email.

Only in government can one contemplate raising prices because people don't want your product.

"Cooperation" has been the mantra of the Kindergarten-minded in our midst for years. "Competition" is supposedly male, leads to Capitalism and war and other not-nice things, and is thus evil and a human trait which must be eliminated.

Of course, I have never noticed women to be any less competitive than men. Everybody enjoys a bit of the spice of competition in life, even when you lose.

Competition vs Cooperation a phony duality which, I assume, comes from some wacky ideology. Case in point: The Dark side of Cooperation.

From Washington Reb's excellent, quick run-thru of political science and moral education:

America had the best of all worlds for probably 150 years: the Red Man was a man of honor; the Irishman and the Scot, wearing leather leggin's and fighting the Red Man, produced an entirely new creature. Combine those raw ingredients with the puritan's congregationalism, and you get a human being uniquely suited for republican citizenship. Raise such a man in atmosphere that punishes public cursing and public drunkenness -- a society whose women value the family over the orgasm -- and you have a country ready for business.

You got yourself a pretty safe place for kids to grow up in.

You don't have that now, do you?

Well, then, you might want to give some constructive thought to whether you can get that back, 'cause no one's gonna get it for you, punk'n.

In fact, fine amendments in general. h/t, Theo

Women today are more macho than the metro men. They always were, too.

Equality ad absurdum. Story at Minding the Campus.

I was doing some Spring clean-up on the old horseless carriage last weekend, and began to wonder what stuff other people keep in their vee-hickles.

I keep a small shovel, an ice-scraper, a bag of sand, one of those giant Cabela's flashlights with a car charger, a bunch of accumulated maps - I like maps despite my GPS thing,  my shotgun shell mini-humidor with a few smokes, a plastic baggie full of spare change, a random assortment of CDs, my car cell charger, a pair of sunglasses, and a loaded handgun in the glove compartment just so as to be "always prepared."

Plus there is always stuff from my last few errands or outings (eg dry cleaning, ammo, fertilizer, dog food, boots, can of gas, a hat or two, containers of 2-cycle oil, etc), but that stuff rotates, slowly.

What lives in your car? Tell us in the comments.

From Reason (h/t Insty): Will Elena Kagan Allow Books to be Banned - Understanding the Supreme Court nominee’s chilling argument in Citizens United.

Each Supreme nomination provides an opportunity for education about the Constitution.

Insty at Pajamas concludes:

Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law. It will stay so, as long as enough Americans care to keep it that way.

And from Somin at Volokh: (fixed)

The trade-off between lives and constitutional rights is one better made by the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution than by judges.

Also, meet Otis McDonald, the guy behind the McDonald decision (h/t Moonbattery)

The Second Amendment wins again. Bible 'n Guns R Us.

Income mobility in America is remarkably high due to our (still) free market economy. That is a good thing. The permanently poor are as unusual as the permanently rich, from an income standpoint.

People move up and down the income scale.

The study of income mobility in the US is here. (h/t, Tigerhawk's link dump)

Breaking eggs. From Anne Applebaum in her review of Children of the Gulag, quoting Lenin's wife (h/t Samiz):

"We are building socialism ... and as long as we are building socialism but have not yet built it, we will also have homeless children."

A friend handed me one of the short box-pressed Padrons yesterday, and I burned it this morning. Delicious. They are not too easy to obtain, and not cheap at all. Davidoff's has them in NYC.

Ah, the Havana Club.

With all of the rules about smoking these days, short cigars will be a bigger thing. What do y'all like in short ceegars?

Regular guys do not worry overly much about their appearance (unless at work, on first dates, on the golf course, or at the club). Yes, regular grooming habits do seem necessary, as do clean if not ironed clothing.

This post, however, is about so-called "old man walking shoes." In NYC, or when travelling in Europe and parts beyond where you end up walking many cement or asphalt or dusty or dusty in a day, it makes sense to swallow one's vanity and to invest in some seriously comfortable walkin' shoes. I don't mean huntin' and hikin' boots.

I have worn out one pair of expensive Mephistos, but for comfort, support, and general ugliness, these New Balance walking shoes are the best. Cheap, too, and ugly enough in black to exceed the criteria for "old men's walking shoes." (If you get them in white, you look like you should be pattering around  a nursing home.) I have worn these things all around the world.

And consider this: If you are a cool, interesting, streetable man who is good at sparkling conversation, oblique flirtation, and snappy repartee - as I am - only a moron would hold the provenance of your shoes against you.

(This does not, obviously, apply to women and shoes, which is a subject of deep mystery to all.)

Walkin' Blues, with Roy Rogers on bottleneck. I like it. I first heard this song sung by John Hammond (yes, the John Hammond's son) quite a long time ago:

"The Liberals, with their emphasis on collectivism and conformity, and their willingness to use compulsion to achieve their ends, are actually suggesting a course of action which thoughtful men have rejected throughout history. The reason man must be treated as an individual is because he has an individual immortal soul. Thus, his freedom comes from God -- as do all of his rights. In the scheme of things, government's only proper role is in the protection of man's God-given freedoms and rights." [All emphases again are -----'s own.]

Answer below the fold -

Who is surprised?

A new study by the National Association of Scholars has found that 70 percent of the summer reading books assigned to incoming college freshmen in the U.S. show a liberal bias and are not academically challenging, setting off a storm of debate in educational circles.

Petraeus or whoever. Is this our job? Even Alexander tried, and many have tried since.

I thought it made some sense to go after an Al Qaida refuge, but building an orderly nation-state in Afghanistan? As they used to say, "You can't shine shit."

We shined a light on Al Qaida and they scattered like cockroaches in a New York kitchen. But now what?

Emperor, philosopher, warrior. From a review of a new bio of Marcus Aurelius which was written by an author who dislikes Stoicism:

To read the Meditations, you would not imagine them to be the writings of a man encamped in barbarian lands in the midst of war, nor of a man commanding the largest army ever assembled on the frontier of the Roman empire, nor of a man whose empire and army were in the grip of a deadly plague. The Meditations' lack of political or worldly anguish and anxiety is a mark of the philosophy they profess: Stoicism.

Life is just a vale of tears, and all you do is damage Gaia. Driscoll: Academia’s Endless Doomsday Cult.

You first, Professor. Unborn yourself. Set an example.

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.

Billy Shankly, quoted in a post about Soccer at American Thinker. My view is that soccer is good fun to play, but watching pros play is like watching paint dry.

Mort Zuckerman, Obama supporter: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur.

A quote:

 "There are always two chess games going on. One is on the top of the table, the other is below the table. The latter is the one that counts, but the Americans don't know how to play that game." 

Another:

Obama has asserted that America is not at war with the Muslim world. The problem is that parts of the Muslim world are at war with America and the West.

Shucks, who knew? I thought the real world was a college bull session.

Ronald Reagan famously said: “The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Reasons the US government should leave the intertunnels alone:

Marginally, maybe. Maybe, from being around curious, achievement-oriented, high IQ peers. From that, one might become competitive, inspired, and humbled - if one were not lucky enough to have those qualities in the first place.

Truth is, as I say here ad nauseum, that we don't know what "education" means beyond readin, ritin and rithmatic. A college degree can mean anything and nothing because becoming aware of the world and the world of the past, and the stories and the ideas of the past, cannot be fed. It must be taken. All edumacation is self-edumacation.

I think America would be better off if you could buy an Ivy League diploma online for $39.99 after answering a few questions about calculus, Julius Caesar, and Leonardo.

The Egalitarian Craze.