Wednesday, November 29. 2006
 When I was 14, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend.
When I was 16 I got a girlfriend, but there was no passion, so I decided I needed a passionate girl with a zest for life.
In college I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional. Everything was an emergency; she was a drama queen, cried all the time and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.
When I was 25 I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was totally predictable and never got excited about anything. Life became so dull that I decided that I needed a girl with some excitement.
When I was 28 I found an exciting girl, but I couldn't keep up with her. She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything. She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I decided to find a girl with some real ambition.
When I turned 31, I found a smart ambitious girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground and married her. She was so ambitious that she divorced me and took everything I owned.
I am now older and wiser, and am looking for a girl with big tits.
Tuesday, November 28. 2006
A couple of happy Maggie's Farmers, up north, out of the brush and on the highway: 
 The Vikings are returning in their ships to Ireland, reports Blue Crab. Very cool, but it's not really a very difficult passage, in good weather.
The Norsemen terrorized the British Isles during the dark ages, raping, burning, killing and pillaging...all the fun stuff Vikings liked to do, but also settling and colonizing, to some extent, until the French-speaking Norsemen of Normandy finally took the whole place over in 1066, more or less. Monks huddled on top of inaccessible places like Skellig Michael to elude them, and dedicated their lives to prayer and the copying of the ancient classical writings. We first learned about Skellig Michael on the old PBS Civilization series by Lord Kenneth Clark (that was good TV - every kid should see it). And then more in Thomas Cahill's wonderful How the Irish Saved Civilization. I like all of Cahill's stuff, especially Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus. I have been to Skellig Michael. Took the little fishing boat out there and climbed those endless narrow stone-cut, railing-less, acrophobia-inducing steps almost to the top, where their stone huts still sit in the wind and clouds. Would not recommend going to Ireland without going down there. Image: A view from Skellig Michael.
Monday, November 27. 2006
In those aspen groves. What's a "Woodcock"? Tasty little things. 
We see, on average, 1.3 movies per year, so we are not experts. But this new one is good. After 40 years of seeing every enjoyable Bond film, this one preserves most of the Bond atmosphere (beaches, pretty gals, tuxedos) but dispenses with most of the dated stuff, like car chases, boat chases, helo chases, shaken not stirred, and gizmos (and, alas, Q died). And this one makes Bond a bit less of a cartoon character (he falls in love, he is overly-trusting, he bleeds). Still, an excellent male role model. 5/5 barks from the Bird Dog - a memorable thriller.
Sunday, November 26. 2006
Instapundit posted a link to this piece by Bennett in praise of our interstate highways. They get no praise from me. The romance of the open road? No thanks. Boring as hell. Not only that, the interstates were little more than a boondoggle for the car and real estate business. Why a boondoggle? Because these roads were bought by the taxpayers. The railroads, on the other hand, were paid for by the railroads. The highways created the urban sprawl which all aesthetes and conservation-minded folk, like me, deplore. Only those who live on the coasts know what these highways did to destroy, permanently, natural and agricultural areas - and to damage the railroad industry with government roads. I use them all the time, but I resent their existence nonetheless.
Thursday, November 23. 2006
The most interesting book I've read this year - George Marsden's recent biography of Jonathan Edwards. I am about halfway through it, but find it difficult to put down. (It won the Bancroft Prize.) Marsden weaves late colonial history, theology, Edward's complex life (his struggles with faith, struggles with temptation, struggles with character flaws, his depressions, his never-resting intelligence), and the daily life of the times into a darn good tale. And Marsden does know his theology. Connecticut's Edwards (1703-1758) is one of the most compelling and important figures in American history - probably more important than the Founding Fathers: he helped lay the cultural foundation on which the national institutions were constructed. I see him as the evolutionary link between the Puritan Pilgrims and the world of the Founders. His view of the world was far better known in the colonies in 1776 than were the works of John Locke - or of anyone else: sermons were best-sellers in those days. Isolated: not really. Did Edwards read Locke? You bet. Locke was his great inspiration (except for scripture), at Yale (then a divinity school). Newton and Rousseau too: these New Englanders were plugged into the latest European thinking. His life and preaching remain a part of America's national DNA. As theologian, theological logician, preacher, and the preeminant evangelist of the Great Awakening, he has been and remains the dominant figure in the history of American religious life - and a major international figure, too, because of his role in the worldwide movement that puritan Reform (Calvinism) represented. So he is well worth reading about. From the Booklist review: In the first full critical biography of Edwards in 60 years, a distinguished Notre Dame scholar humanizes America's greatest colonial clergyman, a man highly esteemed in his own time but since singled out for decades of abuse by Puritan-bashers. To be sure, Edwards' brimstone pulpit rhetoric (most famously deployed in his 1741 sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") offends modern sensibilities. But Marsden--drawing heavily on recent scholarship--restores Edwards to an eighteenth-century New England where most shared his doctrines, though few could rival him in the power with which he preached them. Exceptional insight shines through a felicitous style as Marsden recounts how Edwards acquired that power, the intellectual rigor of his Yale studies gradually lending force to his intense spiritual vision. His rare gifts enabled Edwards to kindle the Great Awakening, emblazoning his name on the pages of American history.
A quote from Marsden's excellent Introduction: Historians of the United States have been prone to give much more attention to Benjamin Franklin than to Edwards as a progenitor of modern America. That is understandable because Franklin seems so congenially to represent tendencies that triumph in mainstream American life and politics. Yet a good case can be made that stories of America are deficient if they do not at least temper emphasis on the Franklins of the heritage with a serious reckoning with its Edwardses. Most strikingly, the modern narratives fail to account for why levels of religious practice came to be so much higher in the United States than in other modernized nations. They also do little to explain why evangelical Christianity flourished in America and why its revivalist style became one of America's leading exports.
So-called "nice weather" doesn't mean a thing to real Yankees. We exult in challenging weather, and love to go out in it to do things. Indeed, we look down on the "soft," who want life to be easy, overly comfortable, over-heated, and overly safe. We like hard stuff, and we like to teach ourselves discipline. We do not respect the soft, lazy, easy parts ourselves - and rightly so. But we do not disdain good sex or good wine or good company. Even mediocre wine. And neither did the Puritans, as they were disparagingly termed. Furthermore, we are raised to expect life to bang us up, draw some blood, break our hearts, make us shiver in the wet cold sleet, rust our guns, damage our faith, strain our capacities, get us lost in the financial, spiritual, metaphysical, or literal woods, disappoint our fondest hopes and dreams, make us hurt by friends and injured by enemies, drag us towards sin and pride, face us with risk, hand us loneliness and doubt, confront us with danger, add sorrow to our basket of sorrows, and even to kill some of us. But we must give thanks for the chance to engage all of it, for better or worse, as best we can, with such gifts and such weaknesses as we are given. Can we take delight in the moments of joy and pleasure? Of course. But those are the exceptions: the dessert, the country pies of life. No God promised us a rose garden: only politicans do that. God gave us mainly a chance for salvation of our souls - and interesting weather, and an interesting, complex, difficult life, to contend with, without all of the tools we really need....except the ablility to connect with God's love, if we want to. It's about Grace. 
Wednesday, November 22. 2006
Good piece about Amis by the author, Zachary Leader, of the new bio. I want more than my share. How good was Lucky Jim? Never politically correct.
Tuesday, November 21. 2006
 It's criminal that we have neglected P.J. O'Rourke on Maggie's Farm. He deserves plenty of free advertising.
We have read every book he has written, with great amusement, and we have even publicly indicated a half-serious interest in hunting grouse and woodcock with him in New Brunswick. The subject of P. J. comes up becomes Wizbang has been thinking about humorous conservatives, and those folks seem to enjoy New Hampshire's P.J. as much as we do. And, to save us the trouble, Wizbang has an archived quote from All the Trouble in the World, which is good fun: Back in London, I was having dinner in the Groucho Club -- this week's in-spot for what's left of Britain's lit gritz and nouveau rock riche -- when one person started in on the Stars And Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about "your country's never been invaded." (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see.) "You don't know the horror, the suffering. You think war is..."
I snapped.
"A John Wayne movie," I said. That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie -- with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You're right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They're us. WE BE BAD.
We're the baddest-ass sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We're three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother's side. You take your Germany, France and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap D'Antibes. And we've got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.
"You say our country's never been invaded? You're right, little buddy. Because I'd like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who'd have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying 'Cheerio.' Hell can't hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch."
Of course, the guy should have punched me. But this was Europe. He just smiled his shabby, superior European smile. (God, don't these people have dentists?)
There's an entertaining interview with him here. And also in Cigar Afficionado.
Monday, November 20. 2006
Sunday, November 19. 2006
Thanks to Neoneocon for highlighting Richard Thompson. British folk-rock? Whatever. The guy deserves it. For a taste, you can stream Mingulay Boat Song here.
It's getting to the time of year for trip planning, so it is time for another free, unsolicited advertisement for a travel organization. We love ABC Destinations. With over 40 years of travel organizing, they know where to go and how to get there reasonably. We know - we have used them for Italy, and our friends and relatives have used their organization for Spain, Portugal and France. Check out their site, and their sister site, the very reasonable Club ABC Tours, with whom anyone can afford to travel right, anywhere. Just join 'em. And yes, they are generous donors to our Ducks Unlimited conservation charity, for which we are most grateful. Most importantly, they are good, nice and helpful folks who want to make sure you are delighted with your trip.
Thursday, November 16. 2006
Frontiers deserves a free ad on Maggie's Farm not only because they are a very fine travel company for sporting trips and otherwise, but because they donate generously to our Ducks Unlimited Chapter. Our committee members use Frontiers often. Check out their site. 
 We do not like to make too much of this, because much of the trivia of life is absorbing, amusing, diverting, fascinating, obnoxious, therapeutic, strenuous, draining, difficult, challenging, growth-promoting, necessary, dutiful, etc. We like to do dumb things that don't matter, and to read silly books too.
But our penultimate rule about decisions in life is the Deathbed Rule: "How much will this matter to me when I lie there dying?" (I'd have to say that our ultimate rule/question is, or should be, "Am I aligned with God's will?")
Wednesday, November 15. 2006
Two small Fra Angelicos have been discovered. Cool story, at Never Yet melted. Below is my photo of the convent of San Domenico on the road between Fiesole and Firenze where Fra Giovanni di Fiesole, aka Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro) worked and lived. You walk in there, and the church is dark, dusty, and empty. Not even an old lady to accept a donation for the church. 
You turn the switch for the bare hanging lightbulb in each little side chapel, and you see magical stuff like this: 
Tuesday, November 14. 2006
Not entirely thought through in Denmark? And what do the Moslems think? Quick peek speedbandits.wmv. Yes, it is mildly but cheerfully T-rated.
Monday, November 13. 2006
Norm gets it: [L]et me repeat what I often say to students who come braying to me with postmodernist ideas: Suppose that I return a term paper to you with a failing grade and a note that reads, "I should give you a much better grade, but I hate your guts, so there." You will scream bloody murder, go to the dean, possibly sue me. What is the assumption behind your outrage? Obviously, you expect me to grade your paper fairly - that is, objectively - regardless of my feelings about you. But why do you demand this of me as a teacher while denying my ability to do it as a researcher?I've found, from my own experience, that when this kind of objection is put to them people of postmodernist outlook are not in fact lost for an answer. They will say something like this: 'Of course, there is an existing language game here, with its own rules, conventions and understandings, and within that language game we too know how to grade papers fairly and objectively.' Hooray, they know how to do it. They only fail to note how damaging this answer is for their opposition to the possibility of there being objective criteria. If everything is relative to one or another perspective, or cultural or intellectual framework, ruling out that there could be right and wrong (albeit always provisionally) about historical events, explanations of illness, ditto of the origin of species, and what have you, how does it suddenly happen that there's this thing called a language game which can be referred to just like that, as though what it is is clear to the vision, its rules are uncontroversial, its inner meanings and deployment of criteria supply a definitive way of resolving disagreement? If the pomo answer to this is to say that there is no such solid ground, because the language game itself is subject to the same relativizing effects that multiple different perspectives produce upon historical events, illness, and so forth, then the language game-type response to Berger's question is merely a delaying tactic. Once you fall through this particular floor, the relativist drop is bottomless. (See also this earlier post.)
Indeed, the drop is the fall into the abyss, and is not safe for children, or for anyone who cannot handle the metaphysical depths.
The granddaughter dared me to post these two YouTubes from Borat: 1. The Khazakstan national Anthem 2. Throw the Jew Down the Well
Sunday, November 12. 2006
From our cousin Mr. Free Market: photos like this one. What a joy. Too bad the Brits don't love us Americans as much as we love them. That war was a long time ago, and remember - it was about government power over the people, and taxation. Who had it right? At least we still speak of freedom. Nice bag, young fella. 
Silly, cute, and universal - from Avenue Q: YouTube
Friday, November 10. 2006
Marine Corps gun fighting rules, from Evangelical Outpost, on the Marine Corp's 231st Birthday:  1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. Have a plan.
13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them.
19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a "4."
Image: That's a Marine with an M16A2 5.56 mm rifle
You have just made it through your wedding ceremony and step out onto the church steps. The photographer raises his camera... Following your family tradition, both of you hold white doves which you will release together. You and your new husband stand shoulder to shoulder with a dove in your hands as your friends and relatives eagerly wait. The photographer gives the ready signal and you open your hands toward the sky. Not a dry eye in the house, the camera flashes; the moment is saved for eternity.... (T-rated image on continuation page below)
Continue reading "Continuing with today's marriage theme..."
Thursday, November 9. 2006
That's Prada, in Florence. It's a guy's job to wait outside. 
Tuesday, November 7. 2006
Re-posted from Nov 1, 2005. Was that trip a year ago? 
Our bird hunting trip to the Adirondacks this past weekend was a delight, thanks to excellent, lively companionship, but no thanks to an unseasonably early dump of 16" of snow on Tues/Weds. Conditions up north were not ideal for grouse, or for walking in the deep woods and gnarly alder patches. Nevertheless, the mix of good guys, birds, dogs, guns, and tough-walking, leg-challenging woods, followed by excellent tobacco and moderate amounts of good alcohol, is always one hell of a fine combination for the average American male. And, as I always say, "Hunting isn't shopping." Especially the way I have been shooting this year. On Saturday we headed east, close to Lake Champlaine, where there was no snow, and we had the good fortune to run into a couple of migrating flights of woodock (one flush every five minutes), which redeemed our trip, as did our gala game dinner Saturday night at our gracious hosts at The Hungry Trout, featuring trout, moose, woodcock, grouse, Canada Goose, venison and duck, accompanied by witty conversation and good stories, both the lies and the true. Thanks to a pal's Citation, (next time you are in one, ask the pilot to show you how fast he can climb that machine, and then lean back) the trip was rapid and luxurious, with all necessary adult beverages. NetJets is one way to do it, but there may be better deals if you shop around, or so I am told - but I do not play in that league. This photo from Friday, up towards the Canadian border, close to Dannemora, NY.
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