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Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Saturday, October 20. 2007Precision Museum
The American Precision Museum in Windsor, VT. Looks like it's well-worth a side-trip. h/t, piece at Synthstuff about the place.
Wednesday, October 17. 2007The Inventor of Modern Conservatism
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Bird Dog
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Monday, October 15. 2007The AnglosphereGod and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, by Walter Russell Mead. Quotes from Mead about the book at Dino or Powerline. Sample:
Wednesday, October 3. 2007Petr GinzIsraeli astronaut Ilan Ramon died in the blow-up of the Columbia. Among his gear was a drawing of the earth, from beyond the moon, by Petr Ginz, a Czech author, pamphleteer (he would be a blogger today), and drawer of pictures who was killed in Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of 16. Petr never ceased believing that he and his young friends would be rescued. His sister survived the Holocaust. The story of Petr is in The Diary of Petr Ginz. Sunday, September 30. 2007Who invented the steam engine?Hero of Alexandria, of course (c.10-70 AD). He also may have invented the use of the windmill, and built a wind-powered organ (h/t, Stumbing and Mumbling). Who knew they had organs back then, before churches and before rock bands? Saturday, September 22. 2007Walking Tours of NYC
There is no place in the US with more interesting historical walking tours. The Battle for New York. h/t, Buddy
Posted by The News Junkie
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Monday, September 17. 2007The Owner's ManualToday is Constitution Day. Good piece in Charlotte Observer, via Oxford via Burkean.
Friday, September 14. 2007The 1939 World's FairA tip of the old camo cap to David Thompson, who found a site about New York's 1939 World's Fair. I know that my Gramps took my Mom and my uncle to see it all. Lots of images at the site. Here's a postcard of the Underwood Typewriter exhibit:
Posted by Bird Dog
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Monday, September 10. 2007"Crisis in Belgium"
Belgium was part of Holland until 1830. It is just another artificial state, and may be on the verge of falling into pieces. The above quoted from Crisis in Belgium at Brussels Journal. In the Shadow of the Moon
Ron Howard's new film. Trailer.
Posted by Opie
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Tuesday, September 4. 2007There's A War? Who Knew?
That is to say, I've seen the cooter of every trashy teenage "singer" getting out of car and going to a party. I've seen all I need to see of Brangelina and the football team of children they're trying to purchase wholesale instead of doing it retail like we all do. I've seen drivel and piffle and nonsense; I know that Anna Nicole Smith's "anus is unremarkable," since I've read her autopsy. WTF is going on in Iraq? Are there any paparazzi there? Don't get me wrong. The media has not fallen asleep or anything. I know, for instance, that Bush is Hitler. I know every permutation of his brownshirt perfidy. I've seen and read and heard eleventy billion soliloquies, with photoshopped picture learning aids, exquisitely detailing his crimes against humanity, nature, and God-- except there isn't a god, of course. Silly me. And I'm beginning to supect Helen Thomas doesn't like him much, either. And yes, I understand that Bushitler had a ninja army of mercenary big tobacco executives and Enron jacklegs and someone named Scooter precisely plant explosives during lunchtime when the buildings are empty to blow up the World Trade Center to start his illegal war for oil. I get all that. My bad. Let's not exaggerate. When you report these things, the hair farmer at the network desk always says: "Some say" George Bush had a ninja army of big tobacco executives and Enron jacklegs and someone named Scooter ... Finally, Katie Couric went to Iraq. Now we're getting somewhere. I read with studied interest her dispatch, because her Ernie Pyle style would doubtless clue me in to whole situation there. The Intertoob thingie must have had a kind of interstellar binary paper jam, as I read some sort of note apparently written by a teenage girl describing how grim life at summer camp is because the compressor on the ice cream refrigerator is busted and now we don't have any ice cream. And boy, it's hot and there's no ice cream. The end. You'll have to expend a lot of effort, it seems, to have any idea what the hell is going on in Iraq. If you Google "unreported Iraq," for instance, there's plenty about Haditha, which was plenty reported. It was so very reported, for a while. The last report I got about it was that it made John Murtha get an unlisted phone number. But since pictures of flag draped coffins are not allowed by the fascist regime we've got going, there really is nothing to report until Nancy Pelosi puts on a scarf again. Perhaps I'll try the Intergoogle again, and see if I can find out anything about what it's like to be a soldier in Iraq. I guess since everyone on TV and radio and the newspapers are going to talk only about themselves, we should let the soldiers do likewise. Monday, September 3. 2007Labor DayGrover Cleveland reluctantly supported the concept of a Labor Day during his re-election campaign. He lost anyway. It was meant to be a day off from work for union organizers to organize. I guess now it means the official end of summer, time to get engaged with work again, and hot dogs and watermelon. To me, it means two things: our peak tomato season, and time to start pulling out the hunting gear. I suppose it also means the official start date of the national campaign, but I am already bored with that. Brief history of the holiday here. (If your eyes are failing, that's Teddy Roosevelt somewhere in the photo.) We did a piece last year about the skilled trades. Done with Mirrors has some thoughts about America's love-hate relationship with work. And one more: Americans are the most productive workers in the world. Blue Crab. It's called the Protestant Work Ethic. Thursday, August 23. 2007Democracy vs. Republic
A reader likes to highlight the distinctions between a Democracy and a Republic, and recommends this very clear brief essay on the subject. It's worth reminding oneself about this.
Wednesday, August 15. 2007On this day, 1945VJ Day. Photo is the White House lawn, Aug. 15, 1945. (Thanks, Roger de H.)
Tuesday, August 14. 2007Adopted Son: The Marquis de la Fayette
And, like any French aristocrat, marriage was no obstacle to his skirt-chasing. A wonderful summer read: Adopted Son: Washington and Lafayette, and the Friendship that Saved the Revolution. Thursday, August 2. 2007Instant history
Flash maps of the Middle-Eastern empires at Acute Politics. (h/t, Jules)
Thursday, July 19. 2007Candidate for Best Short Essay of the Year: The Return of HistoryRobert Kagan says that the post-Cold War mirage of international harmony is gone, and normal world history has resumed. He begins:
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Bird Dog
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NYC's 80 year-old steam pipes
They do explode on occasion, but yesterday's Lexington Ave. steam explosion was more dramatic than usual. Old steam pipes.
Wednesday, July 11. 2007FDR: Our Most destructive President
Lincoln - a superb and fascinating human being by any measure - squashed any pretense of voluntary confederation among the units of the young nation. FDR elevated the power of the Federal government over the individual to levels which never could have been imagined previously. However, the ultimate result of the sickening Civil War has been positive - freedom for many and preservation of the union (although one may and should question whether maintaining the union was worth the destruction of the South and 620,000 dead - the most in any war in America's history). FDR's accumulation of power in DC has been an enduring disaster which, because of the numbers of clients and beneficiaries, may be impossible to undo short of rebellion (see Vermont's recent threats to secede, but for different reasons). Did the New Deal have any impact on the Depression? No, none - and some argue that New Deal policies helped to perpetuate the Depression. But "he cared." I am sure that he did. Individual freedom from government power is always stolen with the excuse of "crisis." (Thus the Left has learned to have a "crisis du jour" to try to justify the expansion of the Federal government at the expense of the states and the citizen.) The Great Depression was the seemingly permanent crisis which was used to justify almost any power grab by Washington. How was this done? The notion of a permanent severe scarcity crisis was presented, which supposedly only Roosevelt's leftist (more acurately, Stalinist) government experts were smart enough to deal with. A piece on the subject by Captain Ed pointed me to George Will's review of Shlaes' The Forgotten Man, which we have discussed here earlier. A quote from Will:
The New Deal "brain trust" was wrong about theory, wrong about the American vision of freedom, and wrong about the direction of the future. You can read a couple of our previous pieces on this subject here and here. Addendum: The Jacksonian makes a different argument - for Pres. Wilson, here. He makes the case that the political changes from 1909-1919 set the stage for FDR. A good read. Wednesday, July 4. 200713 Sovereign States
Each state coveted its autonomy, during and after the war. There was no US until 1789 when those independent 13 states, after much dithering, politicking, and ambivalence, agreed to cede some small amount of power, besides the power to run the Continental Army, to a united Federal government. They were all, naturally, and rightly, suspicious about the idea. But the State of New York, as I understand it, gets the main credit for insisting on the addition of a Bill of Rights before being willing to sign on to the document. Many delegates felt that enumerating all of those rights - and more - was unnecessary and obvious. Image: Weisgerger's painting of Betsy Ross presenting the flag of the Continental Army in 1777 - what was called the flag of the "Grand Union." Prior to that time, the Army had only State and militia flags and banners. Tuesday, July 3. 2007History of TravelA brief look at the history of travel by Culver at History News Network. A quote:
Read the whole thing. Monday, June 25. 2007Charming and Historic Town of the Week: La CrosseThis week it's La Crosse, Wisconsin, a nice little town on the
The Dylanologist would have to agree, though of course it's true that there's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. Monday, June 18. 2007Well-Preserved Town of the Week: Staunton, VirginiaWith 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 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. 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. Who were the Hunnu (the Huns)?
The huge 1st century BC Hunnu Kingdom, against which the Great Wall of China was a defence, seems to have consisted of Mongols. Attila, too. As a wag commented, hunnu?
Saturday, June 16. 2007JFK Inaugural AddressAddendum - by coincidence, a piece by Driscoll yesterday on pre- and post-Dallas liberals.
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