Maggie's Farm

I would like to go, unless Dem taxes prevent me from ever going anywhere again. These islands were Scandinavian until relatively recently.

Photo by Will Self of the Brough of Mousa, a remarkably well-preserved Iron Age dwelling. More like a fortress. I'd guess it had a thatched roof on top.

It is especially interesting to me because I am halfway through Francis Pryor's Britain BC. Do not read Pryor's book unless you want a ton of detail about prehistoric Britain. My sense is that pre-Neolithic, ie pre-agricultural man lived pretty much the same way everywhere on the planet, digging roots and picking nuts and killing stuff - including each other. Likely eating each other too.

During most of that late-glacial history, Britain was connected to the Continent, with what is now the southern part of the North Sea being a giant marshy plain full of reindeer, elk, horses, pig, auroch, moose, beaver, and deer. (There are tons of prehistoric artifacts sitting in the now-undersea peat.)

The Neolithic history is more interesting, and everything post-Neolithic isn't too much different from today except technologically.

Here's the world's most remarkable yacht, The Maltese Falcon, in San Francisco Bay with Angel Island on fire in the background.

We tracked down the photographer: he is George Dapsevicius. Kudos to him.

I am told that Krauthammer made the interesting point on TV last night that the intensity of the hatred for Sarah Palin from women has little or nothing to do with her personality.

He said it's because she, as a lovely and feminine mid-40s woman with a litter of kids including one with Down, a cool masculine Eskimo hubby, and a stunningly-successful Governorship, stands as a reproach to the complaining and whining class of American  women: a reproach to the cult of victimology and a reproach to the abortion fetishists. (Plus she's just too happy about life and her country, and intelligent, sophisticated folks aren't supposed to be happy about things.)

A reasonable person might have expected her candidacy to be a source of pride and pleasure for those women. I promise you that, if she had a "D" after her name, she would be a MSM heroine. Colorful and exotic. The Dems would find a way to make her "Josephine Sixpack" - "The fresh voice of the American worker from the American Frontier." Anybody who criticized her would be slammed as "classist" or "intellectual snob" or "an elitist out of touch with real Americans." And they would, no doubt, remind you that she runs a $6 billion budget and 26,000 employees and plays hardball with the oil companies. Nobody else running has ever done anything like that.

Something similar applies to Obama. Clearly his race (What is his race? I guess I mean his skin color) is a source of fascination to the MSM, Leftists, and black voters. However, black Repubs have had little success in elections with black voters, including Repub stars like Michael Steele in Maryland. That is why Obama is not detested by black Americans as a reproach to their victimology and resentment (although he was seen that way at first, most notably by Jesse Jackson who expressed the tolerant opinion that Obama "was too white" implying that his success served to discredit, and to alienate him from, grievance-seeking blacks).

Had Obama been a celebrity "R" preaching freedom and opportunity, how far would he have gotten? Would he have given Chris Matthews a thrill up his thing thigh?

I suppose my point is that, for the MSM and the left, race and gender are only a big deal when they are combined with that magic "D."

Another sunset from Lake Winnipegosis, taken from Gwynnie's duck boat last week. I term these sorts of day-glo sunsets "post-nuclear":

I had the pleasure of attending a small charity gathering last night for a good mental health cause at which Ashford and Simpson performed.

Ashford told the story of how the "dumbest, simplest song" he ever wrote (Let's Go Get Stoned) got picked up by Ray Charles, which set their songwriting career into high gear. He also talked about what it was like to present new songs to Berry Gordy with Smokey Robinson in front of you in the line. Daunting.

They had a funky Motown-style band with a couple of back-up singers. They did "Solid," "High Rise," "Let's Go Get Stoned," "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and a lot more. Nothing they didn't write.

They have been married for 32 years and are humble, obviously grateful, and likeable folks. Their performance of Solid was much more powerful than this one.

The Manning Report. (He calls Obama "Senator Tarzan," but I call him "Senator Government.") h/t, Moonbattery:

I happen to drive over the Sippican River on the way to Cape Cod. Here's Leonard's Pond on the East Branch of the Sippican River:

Here's Brigg's Marsh (looks good for ducks) near the outlet of the Sippican River. There is nothing on earth as lovely as a brackish salt marsh (except for a pretty girl and, in duck season, it's a toss-up):

Rants are sometimes therapeutic, aren't they? Vanderleun caught our friend Dr. Bob's recent jeremiad. 

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. I think we (slightly) grey hairs were saying such things in the cave-man days...not that such things do not need to be said.

An odalisque is a Moslem's slave concubine, but all guys could use a bunch of them around the place, as long as they have sweet and agreeable temperaments and are willing to give the wife a hand with the chores. Plus no burkhas required when they are lounging around ye olde wood-stove-heated New England harem. 

Ingres' Odalisque (1814).

The modern version:

h/t, AVI

A free ad for this Vermont photographer's site:

It's been a long time since our Aliyah pal has given us a look at his new life in Israel.

Holy Blood  - Part I - Oct 2008

Being two days before Yom Kippur, I set my gyroscope for the Shuk.  I travel gyroscopically to reach each station of my pilgrimage: the butcher for chicken, the Arab green grocer; the Menahem Begin booth for fruit; the Ethiopian's for quinoa and spices. In the shuk, nothing should distract me.  But, the shuk is mostly distractions.
   

This day, my 'scope went off its gimbals.  A small breech in the shuk wall beckoned.  It was on Agrippas Street, just past the rugelach bakery and before the Arab knupfe and sweets seller. First I notice the two girl soldiers guarding the opening.  Instead of bustle, an occasional person or a couple entered or left solemnly. The two steps up was half-ramped with rough cement, the stuff what the Romans invented.
   

Transformed to flaneur, I entered, hesitantly. An open courtyard with three tables forming an open square not quite greets me. In fact, greeting doesn't come to mind here.  Only after a few moments does an undertone of pungence, an indistinct rankness fogged about me – comes and goes. I realize later that this is the fragrance of fowl death.  I see a trio of pairs behind each table and perhaps five people before them, one young religious couple milling centrally or posed before the tables of judgment.  Matters dawn on me. I see the kippa'd man withdraw a live chicken from a coop. He has a deft manner of holding up to the customer. One-handed, he pinions the wings from their base (our shoulder) behind the bird; unflappable these wings are now.  I hear peeps and realize that these are almost chickens; oversized chicks, pubertal birds.  The chicken, while white, has a besmirched breast, as if it has not yet come clean. It soon must.  Of the young couple, the woman, hair-covered, bends forward, but a bit. The chicken-wielder passes the bird in an elliptically orbit and just at an angle near the woman's head, like some off-centered rings of Saturn. I see his lips move.  Then, he pulls back this feathered sattelite and deftly again, releases thumb and forefinger from the wings to hold back the chicken's head, goose-necking the bird. In his other hand, he wields a straightrazor, similar to the old types once leather-stropped, but this has replaceable blades, like what Gillette invented.  He makes a gentle slit, much less to it than I thought might be.  And does the bird a header into one of eight zinc funnels sticking into the table before him. Little is seen from these funnels above – I think I spot a few feathers ascend to heavenward, but are brought back by wind and gravity before they get too far. I think I spy the legs kicking, but perhaps this is imagination. I do see the blood funneling down below. The couple, looking relieved or calmed, perhaps certain that at least the woman's sins have been dispelled, leave hand-in-hand.  Money exchanged hands, but I never saw this.
   

Heade is considered a "member" of the Hudson River School of landscape artists. This is Thunderstorm on Narragansett Bay (1868).

Our own Dr. Bliss and our net friend AVI are our go-to people on tribalism.

For better or worse, tribalism is in our blood. It probably was essential for human survival, and probably still is for non-human primate survival. Probably for us, too, if we value our own culture at all. I do value mine - my culture and my subculture.

AVI takes a look at Tribal Elders, Young Turks, and politics.