Thursday, July 5. 2007
 It's a trite old slogan now. You all know where it's from. But like most things that are truly useful, they fade into the background until they are essentially invisible, a plain sort of wallpaper perhaps; and people only point out whatever shortcomings such things have. Only Europeans are bigger ingrates than Americans. We seldom appreciate anything we have; they don't appreciate the things they have, and don't appreciate us, either. An example: I could search the internet for half a second and come up with millions of documents, scholarly and rant-like alike, telling us all how bad the Interstate Highway System is. All the evils it generates. Try finding out the sum total of what it's added to the betterment of our country, and by proxy, the world. I submit to you that no one bothers to even attempt it, because the benefits of the thing are so enormous and so far-reaching that you couldn't even begin to quantify it. So everyone just takes the benefits of it for granted and rails about a swamp that got filled in, or pollution - a little real, mostly imaginary. But then, it's much easier to complain about your cable bill than to turn the TV off, ain't it? I want you to read an entire blog. You heard me, the whole thing. William Kamkwamba's Malawi Windmill Blog I'd like to think that guy is just like me. But it would be presumptuous of me to claim it. But I'd be proud if someone said it about me, that's for sure. I'm going to head a lot of people off at the pass right now. His accomplishments have nothing to do with Gaia-love windpower one-world eco-blathering World Bank recumbent bicycle Earth Day carbon footprint nonsense. A man, aided by friends and family, is able to use his active mind and his efforts to improve the quality of his family's life through his own exertions. That, and he is able -- and allowed-- in a small way to lay his hands on the things he needs to do it. It boggles the mind what that man could do with access to a library and a Home Depot. Please take heed: I said library and not university. A university is now generally simply an intellectual bootcamp, where you are taught that no one needs what William, and many like him, desperately and manifestly do need; things that you take for granted because you have the dough for a 600 dollar phone toy with no inkling of how it, or anything else for that matter, gets to you. They talk a good game about helping people like William in the abstract, as part of a faceless horde. Reality intrudes quickly, though, and they don't do much of anything that helps any individual like William, and generally do a great deal to harm or hamstring him. I fear many might be sanguine about returning such as me to the local equivalent of where William is now -- reading a dogeared book in the dark, slapping at the malarial mosquitoes -- as long as they can call it "progress" on the trust-fund circuit. Also take heed: I said Home Depot and not an Al Gore celebrity self-congratulation extravaganza. They fly over people like William and me, look out the private plane's window and say: No one needs what they want. Please have my concubine feed me another lotos blossom.
I feel better about the world because William Kamkwamba's in it. You want to help him? Start by getting out of his way.
Monday, July 2. 2007
Beverly "Bubbles" Sills died at 78. Una Voce Poco Fa (1976), from the Barber of Seville.
Sunday, July 1. 2007
Earl Scruggs, with Joanie Baez doing Dylan's Love is Just a Four-letter Word Don Ross, guitar-picker extraordinaire, at LGF. Today, Maggie's Farm has warned ya, informed ya, fed ya, entertained ya, and provided holy inspiration. Now I am off-duty, with tennis, smoking a nice pork butt, and some outdoor jobs. See y'all tomorry.
 We have written many times about how using ethanol (alcohol, aka moonshine) as a gas additive is a scam, and nothing more than a massive farm subsidy which is raising the cost of food.
But I just learned more. When you use gas with ethanol, it can destroy your gas-powered power tools and mowers. I just had a conversation with my local Stihl and Scag dealer yesterday - my Stihl hedge trimmer needed a new carburetor. Guy said the ethanol kills these machines - their lines, their carburetors, etc. He says it's also murder on outboard engines. He explained that it's less of a problem for pros who use their tools daily, but if you use your tools occasionally, the alcohol - being water-soluble - separates from the gas and makes a mess. The new carburetor cost me $97. His advice: Run the machine down to empty if you aren't going to use it for a while, and always use fresh gas - don't use two-month-old gas. If you are like me, you have five gallon containers of vintage gas-oil mix left over from last fall. Get rid of it, somehow. Here's one article on the subject.
Tuesday, June 26. 2007
 Her farewell ABT performance yesterday, in Romeo and Juliet - video clips here. (You have to click on the Alessandra Ferri photo link.)
How does that look, for a retirement performance? You could mistake her for a 20 year-old. "A kind of fierce love" from her audience for this passionate prima ballerina. Photo: Alessandra Ferri. Not sure what dance that photo is from, but will try to find out.
Because she smells like a new truck.
How can I instruct someone to be truthful when taking a Moral Sense Test? Anyhow, you can try the Harvard test here. (h/t, Drezner). Then you can lie about your test results.
Monday, June 25. 2007
Inspector Dan seeks the villainous cause of the missing millions of CBS viewers. Iowahawk
This week it's La Crosse, Wisconsin, a nice little town on the Mississippi River along the border with Minnesota. As the story goes, the site got its name when explorer Zebulon Pike witnessed local Indian tribes playing a game with sticks that resembled a bishop's crozier, or crosse, in the language of the French fur traders who, as usual, were the first Europeans to establish themselves in the area. In the late 1800s, thousands of Norwegian and German settlers moved to the area, lending it a character which remains to this day.  The town was the beneficiary of plenty of that distinctively American "main street" style architecture during the 1880s and 1890s, as can be seen in the old postcard above, and to the town's good fortune most of it has survived to the present day. Through a city-wide master plan for redevelopment La Crosse has managed to renovate and refurbish over 100 historic buildings while attracting cutting-edge technology and communications firms to the town. The entire riverfront has been developed as well and outfitted with walking paths and recreational boating areas, making the downtown an even more attractive place to live. The main downside to the place? It's too darn cold for a lot of folks, though the Norwegian settlers didn't mind too much, as this excerpt from an 1854 letter written by a Norwegian immigrant to his relatives back home shows:
"When you wrote about some coffee beans, it is impossible for us to obtain them. They grow in South America under sunshine and a warm and unhealthy climate. Here the climate is cold, healthy and fresh. . . "
The Dylanologist would have to agree, though of course it's true that there's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.
From Cynopsis: It looks as though MySpace isn't the only major media site attracting phishers. Malware in the form of Zlob adware has been discovered embedded in YouTube videos. Attackers are using a fake video link to initiate a p#rn adware program that results in the installation of data-stealing code. Zlob Media's spyware codec was the most prevalent threat to PC users in the month of May, according to Sunbelt Software's Threat Research Center.
 Lots of stuff about unhappy feet recently. For one, there was that teen in Kentucky who lost her feet on an amusement park ride.
Here's neoneo on ballerinas' feet. The pain and destruction are worth it, she feels. And here's John Hawkes on cosmetic foot surgery: "Now I can wear whatever shoes I want."
Photo: Croc shoes. Our readers seem to like them. Is it comfort, or the anti-fashion thing? Or is it a rubber shoe fetish, like wearing latex clothing?
Sunday, June 24. 2007
 The stupidity of the Beautiful People. The Shelf. A quote:
There is no doubt that entertainment effects the development of the younger generation. I see it everywhere when I'm out and about and as my children get a day older every 24 hours I get more and more worried about this influence on them. It is important that we play a large role in the lives of our children. They need to learn about life and it's mysteries from us, not Sheryl Crow or Rosie O'Donnell. Values are timeless, yet pop culture changes their interpretation every decade or so. The popular consensus of what is good and bad, right and wrong are changed slightly every so often by that dirty tactic of "pushing the envelope". Where did the envelope come from and who said we wanted it pushed? The values that were taught to my father and his father are the values I should teach my children. Right and wrong does not change, so why do the Hollywood elite feel the need to mask it as if it does?
Photo: Sean Penn, a "Beautiful Person"
Friday, June 22. 2007
Slideshow of Navy Seal trainee Hell Week.
Thursday, June 21. 2007
 Since when does "the public," ie the government, "own" the airwaves? A radio operator buys or leases a frequency, and then transmits radio waves on that frequency. Who gave the government ownership of frequencies? The government took them over in a weird example, I guess, of eminent domain, in the 1930s. However, the arguments used could just as well have been used for government ownership of news print.
Boortz makes the history of the notion very clear. Perhaps it would be analogous to the government taking ownership of bandwidth. How long until political use of bandwidth is regulated by Washington? We wrote about this yesterday. Photo: Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The first transatlantic radio message from the US was sent from Teddy Roosevelt to King Edward Vll in 1909, from good old Wellfleet on Cape Cod. The beach location is now called Marconi Beach, and it is surrounded by protected land - part of The Cape Cod National Seashore - thanks to JFK. Addendum: For fascinating historical detail about the early goverment intrusion into radio, read the first comment on this post.
Buffalo Hunt, 1897. More of his work here. (thanks, reader). Two wonderful things about Montana (among others) are Russell and A. B. Guthrie. Yes, that painting is what the Montana high plains look like. They are desert-like, since all the rain gets dumped by the weather as it rises over the Rockies, heading east. 
Wednesday, June 20. 2007
Volunteers at Good Samaritan Hospital (not sure which one) in 1957, delivering cigarettes and candy to patients. I'll take two packs of Luckies and a Clark Bar please, Ma'am, and some matches. 
Tuesday, June 19. 2007
One Hundred Years of Solitude turns 40 as Gabriel Garcia Marquez turns 80. From an essay on the novel, by Ilan Stavans at The Chronicle Review: In my 40s, I've returned to García Márquez's masterpiece. Now it seems to me that, like Cervantes's Don Quixote, it decodes the DNA of Hispanic civilization. It's a "total" novel, designed by a demiurge capable of creating a universe as comprehensive as ours.
1874. L'allee au Bouffan 
Monday, June 18. 2007
With all the posts Bird Dog and I have written about the tragic fate of so much of the nation's architectural legacy during the 1960s and 70s (here and here, for examples), I decided to put a more positive spin on things by focusing instead on those fortunate towns that survived "urban renewal" more or less intact. Whether through shrewd foresight, adept planning or just plain luck, these towns weathered the storm and survived into a age where the noble civic architecture of the pre-war years is valued and treasured. Our first featured town? Staunton, Virginia, known for being  the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson and a major trade hub of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Unlike many other southern cities, however, Staunton received hardly any damage during the war, so a large number of the elegant antebellum residences have survived to the present day. In the four decades following the war, the city was embellished with stately Victorian and Romanesque architecture courtesy of architect T.J. Collins. Staunton was small enough, moreover, that no urban planner chose to route an interstate through the downtown area during the postwar years. When the city fell into decline in the 60s, many buildings fell into disrepair, but few were actually torn down.  By the late 1970s, civic-minded citizens were already hard at work preserving the precious architectural heritage of Staunton. The one major new addition to the downtown in recent years - a much-needed parking garage - was built in an elegant classical style that melded with the rest of the city and captured an award for outstanding and original design in 2002.
The purpose of this unsatisfactory and unsuccessful photo in the rain on Saturday was to try to capture the excellent and highly-varied Hosta beds in front of the little antique farmhouse. How many sturdy, self-reliant Connecticut Yankees have been raised in this humble 1720 home? 
Sunday, June 17. 2007
Is the universe a quantum computer? New theories may undo the reality of space and time...but everybody knows that: who has any time, and who has space for anything?
 As narrow-minded, knuckle-dragging traditionalists, we Maggie's Farmers honor fathers: fathers that stick around and do their best to do what grown men need to do for their families and for their communities.
Few of us can reach the Atticus Finch ideal. Here are a few Dad-related links from our archives: The Incredible Shrinking Father A few pretty sailboats M200 carbine Are boys just defective girls? Bring back dueling! Fine powerboats: This one and this one David Grossman's Ode to his son Uri What do men want?
Saturday, June 16. 2007
Banging around Yankeeland in the rain all day, and ended up driving through a hailstorm like I have never seen in New England. It looked as if it had snowed, or as if God had dumped his largest box of mothballs on us. There's a herd of Black Angus in the distance on this farm in beautiful Litchfield County. Taking photos in the rain is evidently not my thing. 
Photos of Tiger Woods' home in the islands. Ain't talent, discipline, and determination a wonderful combination for fulfilling one's dreams, whatever they may be? For Tiger, clearly, one part of the dream is comfortable shelter. This pad has nothing in common with Maggie's Farm except that both have indoor plumbing. 
 More photos on continuation page below.
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