Monday, November 8. 2010
My pal, recently of Israel, sends me this email:
The separation fence made a huge difference in civilian fatalities. A good example of when a government responds well to the fundamental safety of its citizens.
When I think about the fence and the screening of Arabs who want to enter Israel, it is a hardship. Just as trying to get onto a plane today is for so many people. It is a hardship precipitated by a small number of murderers that affects millions of innocent civilians. Same for trying to get into the US today: if you're an alien, the process is more difficult. (An Israeli friend described his "reception" in US recently. Very unpleasant. Yet, he does not hold it against the Americans.)
It is shortsighted to blame the government for doing somethings that protect its citizens (and adversely affects both foreigners and its citizens (Israeli citizens go through unpleasant, routine checks of car, body, etc... when entering any public hall or private facility).
The other side of this is how really effective this terrorist tactic is: make the lives of millions miserable with relatively little effort and cost.
Here's the chart of terror in Israel, before and after. - Fixed
Sunday, November 7. 2010
Memo to file: Do not drive to Manhattan on the day of the New York Marathon. You can't get there from north and, if you do get there, you cannot get out. Here's the Marathon map.
We had an urge to see the Lod Mosaic and the Miro show at the Met today. Just a quick visit, in and out - but it seemed like every highway entrance and exit was closed, with extensive, traffic-jammed detours all around the periphery of the running route.
45,000 mostly out-of-town runners, with family and supporters on the sidewalks, and all the relevant bridges and roads and cross-streets closed, it's a miracle we got home.
We managed to get to the museum by parking 15 blocks away. I think I could have gotten home faster running than driving. I need a Manhattan pied a terre badly, but the government hasn't given me one, yet.
For all the hassle sometimes, and corny as it sounds, I really do love New York. Vitality, variety - all that. It's stimulating to me, just walking around and looking at stuff. Woods and meadows rarely surprise me, because I seem to know them so well. Humans - their works and antics - always surprise me.
I am not blessed with superior brainpower, but I believe I was blessed with a capacity to be enchanted by the details of life.
The Roman mosaic was good to see in person - the teeth of the fish are cool - and the Miro show was fascinating. Miro is always fascinating to me. I don't think of his stuff as surrealism, but instead as just plain hallucinatory. Completely strange, like an acid trip. His work always goes "Ding," Boing," "Snap," "Whirrrrr," "Wheeee," "Pop!" to me. Auditory, synesthetic.
The small show was about his short series of paintings called Dutch Interiors, based on old Dutch images and paintings which he transformed through what he termed his "tragicomic" method.
The show moved from the Rijksmuseum to New York last month. Here's one of the pictures from the show:
I took some random pics, as usual.
I have been told that Grace's Marketplace on 3rd Ave. is the best place to buy cheese in NYC. They generally offer 220+ varieties. Some folks prefer Citarella's, which has a location a few blocks away from Grace's on Third Ave. Better prices, but I know that fancy chefs get their cheeses at Gracie's.
A few more of my lousy NYC pics from today, below:
Continue reading "Miro vs. the NYC Marathon"
Pic is from my first visit to a WalMart two weeks ago. It was a 24 hr/day Supercenter. Yes, I was impressed. It was stocked to the gills, clean as a whistle, and the old codger Greeter at 7 AM was just great.
Wal-Mart vs. The Morons
1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.
8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.
11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.
You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.
To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature,
It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:
a. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
b. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
c. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
d. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor." We still have the poor, and they only demand more. Still waiting for the "Thank you's."
e. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.
AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM?
Saturday, November 6. 2010
 CT is running counter to national trends. Not a single Repub Congressman or Senator, and a State House controlled by Dems with the first Dem governor in 24 years. No brakes.
Watch your taxes, middle class suburbs and quiet farming villages, because they are coming after your money. The unions want a state property tax and a state income tax increase, and Malloy is now owned by the unions.
Even my Dem friends are talking about setting up Florida residence. Vote and run.
Good source for my state's news: Connecticut News Junkie.
This good old independent Yankee state is now entirely in the pocket of the unions - especially the government unions - and the three corrupt urban train wrecks which, instead of being the dynamic centers of job and wealth creation that they once were, have become insatiable sponges for dollars: Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport. Their declines have been dramatic: In the late 1950s, Hartford was voted the most pleasant medium-sized city in America to live in - higher than Boston - and I was told about the lines of limousines parked in downtown Bridgeport.
I cannot explain how that happened, but I do know that people migrated north just before the jobs moved south (to avoid the unions, the high wages, and the taxes). Business has feet: it can move easily to Texas or to India.
CT still has the highest per-capita income in the country, but that is mostly because of New York City's prosperous suburb, Fairfield County (where the O likes to go frequently to mine for gold - Greenwich for the real gold, Bridgeport for the votes). If they over-tax those folks, they will move away. They ain't stupid. You can run a hedge fund from anywhere.
I see that CT is already ranked the fourth-worst state in which to do business. With the new team, I'm sure we could get higher on that ladder without too much effort. It's a damn shame.
The only consolation is that we still have open carry and, of course, readily-obtainable carry.
From an excellent essay at NAS, College Application Essays: Going Beyond "How Would You Contribute to Diversity?":
Would the Yale admissions office look favorably on the student who answered, “I have found ‘diversity’ to be a cudgel by which self-appointed elites attempt to enforce their preferences over others. Diversity to me has been the experience of having my individuality denied, suppressed, and demeaned. It is a word that summarizes a smarmy form of oppression that congratulates itself on its high-mindedness even as it enforces narrow-minded conformity."
No, any student really seeking admission to Yale wouldn’t say such a thing. But chances are very good that a great many students harbor insights very much like that. They know their ethnic or racial categorization, their socio-economic status, and other such characteristics matter far more to admissions offices than their actual thoughts about who they are.
Applicants, of course, are savvy enough to feed the admissions office whatever sort of PC BS they want to hear.
Well, here's my answer to the application diversity question:
"As a middle-class, hard workin', gun-totin', Scripture-readin', horse-ridin', golf hackin', military-respectin', cigar-smokin', freedom-lovin', Scotch-drinkin', heterosexual-and-married-for-life, cranky, preppy, WASP American country club Conservative who likes to make money, I think I would add remarkable diversity to any academic program or workplace. Indeed, I think people would be quite interested in, and would benefit from, my peculiar old-timey Yankee views and my exotic life style. I believe I am an 'underrepresented minority,' and thus deserving of your most serious and special consideration despite my unfortunately-pasty skin tone."
Friday, November 5. 2010
Two competing programs are proposed to Congress from the left and from America�s manufacturers. One protects domestic unions while further burdening US manufacturers and consumers. The other grows US competitiveness.
The Nation, in its inimical leftward way, analyzes the problems with �free trade globalization.� Its National Affairs correspondent, William Greider, longtime journalist, describes �a huge hole in the world�a massive loss of demand. Think of the trade wars as the largest producers fighting over an abrupt shortage of buyers.
The situation, as Greider sees it: A Wall Street Journal poll found that 53 percent (including 61 percent of Tea Party adherents) think free-trade globalization has hurt the US economy. Only 17 percent think it has helped. But the trouble with Americans claiming injured innocence is that it blinds them to the complexities of the predicament. The fact is, the United States and China, motivated by different but mutually reinforcing reasons, collaborated to create the unbalanced trading system. American multinationals eagerly sought access to China's market. The Chinese wanted factories and the modern technologies needed to develop a first-class industrial base. American companies agreed to the basic trade-off: China would let them in to make and sell stuff, and they would share technology and teach Chinese partners how it's done. Not coincidentally, US corporations also gained enormous bargaining power over workers back home by threatening to go abroad for cheaper labor if unions didn't give wage concessions.
Greider points out, correctly, that multinational corporations, clever devils, have profited from US subsidies but, anyways, shipped production overseas for less costly labor and regulation.
Greider�s prescription is to impose more regulation and taxes upon multinationals that ship production elsewhere. Greider does not even suggest that unions negotiate less costly labor contracts or that our government reduce its regulatory burdens upon domestic manufacturers.
Greider, finally, does admit that his recommendation �would raise prices for Americans.� US manufacturing unions, however, would � though still likely to hemorrhage jobs � keep high wages and benefits for their remaining members, and dues flowing for contributions to Democrat political campaigns.
By contrast, the National Association of Manufacturers just issued its Manufacturing Strategy for Jobs and a Competitive America. Some recommendations are clearly self-serving, like not taxing foreign earnings, but most make much more sense than Greider�s � get ready for this euphemism � �national loyalty program.�
Continue reading "US Consumers Vs Unions: Which Program For Congress?"
Thursday, November 4. 2010
 The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, - The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
- Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
- Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
- Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
- Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
- And seeing that it was a soft October night,
- Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
-
- And indeed there will be time
- For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
- Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
- There will be time, there will be time
- To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
- There will be time to murder and create,
- And time for all the works and days of hands
- That lift and drop a question on your plate;
- Time for you and time for me,
- And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
- And for a hundred visions and revisions,
- Before the taking of a toast and tea.
Toast and tea, we used to figger, was the final Communion - Brit-style.
When I was in high school, we all memorized Prufrock. Not because we had to, but because we liked to. As I always say, I define poetry as any writing which contains an inevitability of versification, with some coherence of imagery. Poetry is song-writing. I wish we had recordings of Kipling singing his poems. It would be a hoot, I am sure.
(We memorized things competitively when I was in high school. Shakespeare sonnets and soliloquies, lists of Chem equations and math theorems, Civil War dates and other historical dates. From all that I use 1569 today as one of my main ID codes (Shakespeare's birth year). Sophocles. Ozymandius. Kipling. Le Bateau Ivre. Paradise Lost. We had an official annual school tournament to see who could memorize the most lines of the opening of the Iliad, and another with the opening lines of Canterbury Tales in the original good Old English. Many folks would do 100-200 lines without faltering. The kids taking Latin, of course, had their famous and traditional speed declension contests. I even remember memorizing Babi Yar in Russian for kicks - and I spoke no Russian. It just sounded cool, imitating Yevtushenko's voice. Our hockey team specialized in the Iliad contest - somebody on the team always won. Our hockey coach also taught Ancient Greek. It was a point of honor for the team. A good high school, good fun. I hope high school kids still do amusing things like this. God knows what kids learn in college.)
From an excellent piece on Eliot at Commentary, T.S. Eliot and the Demise of the Literary Culture:
Understatedly spectacular is the way Eliot�s career strikes one today, at time when, it is fair to say, poetry, even to bookish people, is of negligible interest and literary criticism chiefly a means to pursue academic tenure. Literary culture itself, if the sad truth be known, seems to be slowly but decisively shutting down.
The fame Eliot achieved in his lifetime is unfathomable for a poet, or indeed any American or English writer, in our day. In 1956, Eliot lectured on �The Function of Criticism� in a gymnasium at the University of Minnesota to a crowd estimated at 15,000 people.
Read the whole thing. Eliot was a bank teller, of course - and a rock star. Still is a rock star, in my book. His stuff sticks like Velcro. Christ was his rock.
 Big lies, small lies, creative and manipulative "narratives," etc. are what much of politics is all about. We know that politics is a more humane substitute for war.
(We also know that, as virtuous souls, Conservatives always hold the high moral ground. Always.)
That aside, I am still puzzled by the shorthand of "Left" and "Right." It makes no real sense, as Wiki explains well.
If today people use those words nowadays to signify collectivism vs. individualism and freedom, why don't we use those words instead?
Jonah Goldberg notably dealt with these issues in his Liberal Fascism.
OK, but what about Adolf Hitler? Left or Right? This via Doug Ross:
"I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit. The difference between them and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers and penpushers have timidly begun...I had only to develop logically what Social Democracy repeatedly failed in because of its attempt to realize its evolution within the framework of democracy. National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with the democratic order." -- Hitler to Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pg. 186
I found another one, too:
"It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole ... that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. .... This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture .... we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man." Adolph Hitler, 1933.
Yes, he was just another messianic Leftist dictator with a zealous faith in governmental benevolence and altruism - at gunpoint. Just one amongst the number of Socialist mass-murderers of the 20th Century. I think Hitler would have argued against being part of any "Right."
Statist, collectivist people should be called that - or just called Socialist. People like me can be termed Constitutional-Conservatives-with-a-broad-Libertarian-streak. I guess it's no wonder people look for a shorthand for that, but "Right" doesn't fit.
Monday, November 1. 2010
My chimney sweep was here at noon (to check my flue after my fire on Friday). As he was scoping out my chimney and sending his brushes and vision device up there like a colonoscopy, he commented "I hope we send a clear message to Washington tomorrow."
He is retired career USMC. He still lifts and runs every day, and it is obvious. Oorah. His son is a SEAL.
(He has a very good business going - at $150 per chimney, he was booked up solid from August through December, and does a second round in Feb. for heavy users. His preferred customers have multiple chimneys. Like a dentist, he sends out reminder postcards to his people each July to make appointments. He has a deer- and turkey-hunting cabin on 200 acres up in West Nowhere, NY, has a modest life and doesn't really need the money, so he uses his income to bring his entire family, including grandkids, on one-month European trips every June. He rents a big house with a cook and housekeeper in a different place each year, flies the the folks over and back whenever they can get free to come, and rents cars for them. Last year, he did Scotland. In past years he has done a Greek island, Tuscany, the Czech Rep., Sweden. This June he plans on Sicily, which I told him I felt was an excellent choice).
I said to this hearty, red-blooded American: "I think we will send a message, but who will be listening?"
Get your chimneys cleaned, Maggie's Farmers. We cannot afford to lose any readers in house fires.
More at Theo -
 Most of the time, anyway. I did vote for Lieberman running as an Independent, rightly or wrongly, because the Repub did not have a chance and I did not care for the Dem.
For national elections, I vote Party most all the time. Why? Because when they get to Washington they cease to be individuals, and become captive of their party caucuses. That's the way it works.
Whether smart or dumb, free-thinking or robots, they have to play the game if they want to get anywhere. The leaders call the plays.
Thus, in the end, you are voting for a vote in Congress, not for a person. In primaries, I vote for my preferred candidate, but in national elections I vote Repub only because their caucus is more Conservative than any alternatives.
Voting for "who you like better" is childishly naive and foolish in the extreme. You aren't voting for who you want as a social acquaintance.
If you vote for a Dem, no matter how much you may personally prefer the guy or gal as a social companion, all you are really doing is to put another vote in the Left's pocket. Parties vote as herds, in Congress. That's why they have people called "Whips."
A vote for a Dem is a vote for the current Obama agenda. If you like the Dem approach to life, by all means vote for whomever they are running.
Otherwise, don't.
Sunday, October 31. 2010
Diogenes would find an honest man in Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor for The Examiner. Rare in Washington, D.C., Tapscott has not been compromised by decades there, retaining clear conservative vision and fortitude, always reaching out to promote others rather than himself.
In his editorial, Tapscott writes of the coming major Republican gains and the widespread disillusionment with Democrats� statism, �the message for the GOP: Voters seem willing to give you one more chance to do what you've promised for decades -- cut federal spending, reform entitlements, and restore limited government. Don't blow it.�
As always, Tapscott demands much of our politicians, and of us. He and we will likely have many disappointments.
President Obama will still have the veto, and shows little proclivity to be any less ideologic or self-centered. Even at the most optimistic gains next Tuesday, the Republicans � even if all stick together in legislative battles � will not have a veto-proof weight in Congress. Plus, the regulatory bodies, stocked with Obama allies, will continue to push the left�s agenda.
If the Republicans are wise, there will be many, many opportunities, however, to stall the Obama administration�s leftward march and to expose its waywardness. That will well-serve Republicans and Americans as we consider the 2012 choices.
But, rollbacks, especially major ones, are unlikely, for now.
Just consider, post-1994, how the liberal Congressional minority and its allies in the media even successfully resisted cuts in the federal funding for PBS. And, consider how President Clinton cooperated with Republicans for major welfare reform, compared to the partisan rigidity in all things exhibited by President Obama.
Many will, thus, feel the wind slackening from our sails during the next two years, unless we keep to our oars toward the shore of 2012, to replace President Obama and to send even more courageous Republican conservatives to Congress.
Mark Tapscott and I once reminisced together about how we both started out, lonely in overwhelming Democrat locales in 1964, to see through perseverance following that the growth of a new, vibrant conservatism onto the national stage and mind. I am as optimistic as ever, and so should you be, if we persevere.
------------
Mark Tapscott, also, points us to this Halloween video:
Swamp Thang Thriller from RightChange on Vimeo.
Saturday, October 30. 2010
The attack-dog presidency: two liberal Democrats denounce Obama for "pitting group against group for short-term political gain that is exacerbating the divisions in our country"
Also related: US midterm elections: Barack Obama's world turned upside down as Democrats face electoral disaster
The man is not behaving well, and his behavior does not reflect well on the office he holds. He should know, at least, that if there needs to be any nasty and dirty lashing out, it ought to be done by somebody other than the president.
Americans do not want to make an idol of a president, or of the office, but I think they like to feel that the prez aspires to be the president of all the people, even those who hold policy differences.
Is the mask slipping, revealing an inner anger, a coldness, a disrespect for the American people, and an indifference to truth?
Or is it just Chicago gutter politics, brought to a national stage?
Whatever it is, it is not seemly - and I think it is disturbing to the country. It certainly is disturbing to me to learn that "our" Prez regards me as more of an enemy than he does Ahmadinejad.
And, if he views me that way, how can I be expected to view him as my President?
Friday, October 29. 2010
Readers might doubt me, but last Saturday was my first visit to a WalMart. It was the "Supercenter" in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
What a place! Open 24 hrs/day. Humongous.
I realized one thing about this place: Sam Walton did not really have a new idea. He just took the old country General Store, expanded the hell out of it, and got big enough to control the prices of his suppliers.
I may be the last person on earth to learn these things. Why didn't Woolworth's do what Sam did?
With gerrymandering - especially racial gerrymandering to insure black congressional districts - the Dems become increasing reliant on their safe seats in uban areas, the coasts, and small, isolated Dem islands in the rest of the country.
Thus, except for unusual election years (like this one seems to be), few seats are ever really contested. Congressional seats, like state legislative seats, tend to be sinecures.
The irony is that those "safe seats" and guaranteed black seats that the Dems wanted ended up creating Conservative seats also, by concentrating their voters in specific areas. Dem plantations, as it were - regardless of skin color.
Only in major "wave" elections are very many national seats contested. It's too rare. Every election should be contested or contestable. Safe seats cause us to end up with elderly lunatics like Barney Frank and John Conyers in charge of things - people who wouldn't be voted out even if caught running gay prostitution rings out of their houses.
This is one reason the national Dems become an increasingly Lefty party. It's a shame, because it would be the best for the country for no congressional seat to be taken for granted. I am a believer in the big tent approach for both parties. Debate and disagreement is good for all.
See this:
After midterms, House Democratic Caucus to become more liberal as House becomes more conservative
Thursday, October 28. 2010
Via Legal Insurrection:
True � The statement is accurate and there�s nothing significant missing.
Mostly True � The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
Half True � The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
Barely True � The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
False � The statement is not accurate.
Pants on Fire � The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
In the political world, there are all sorts of truth. In the real world, only one sort. In the real world, a half-truth is a lie.
Via Hot Air.
I think everybody knew that, but the Dems refused to admit it until now. I think Obamacare needs to be destroyed, and re-thought. Reforms are needed:
1. tort reform (half of what docs and hospitals do these days is to avoid lawsuits)
2. some sort of coverage reforms for the uninsurable
3. legalizing interstate sales of medical insurance: free markets and free choice of
plans and options
4. expansion of medical savings plans
5. some sort of support for the return of Major Medical insurance instead of
insurances that cover every flu and bug bite
6. portability of insurance plans
7. adjust Medicare reimbursement by income and assets
Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strips have been featured on newspapers� funnies pages for four-decades. Some newspapers have moved the strip to their editorial pages, since their theme is often � aside from unfunny � starkly and one-sidedly political.
In a Slate interview, Garry Trudeau unknowingly satirizes himself.
Slate: How does the current political era stack up against eras past? Is it more or less funny? Is there more or less material?
Trudeau: I no longer compare them. Each era is the best of times, worst of times. Besides, I'm a pointillist, just working my tiny little piece of the canvas. I'm not so good at perspective.
Having said that, I can tell you that there have been some periods when cartoonists were definitely in clover. Watergate was the perfect subject, because every day brought fresh outrages. Everyone was on his game, and we felt unconstrained, because Nixon's wounds were self-inflicted. Monica was good for cartooning, but it was only one running joke. Bush's misrule�accidental war, torture, Katrina, etc.�provoked great cartoons, but there was so much associated tragedy, there wasn't much fun in it.
Then,
Slate: Who's the hardest politician to satirize, and why?
Trudeau: Believe it or not, Obama's very tough for business. The contradictory characterizations of him as fascist or socialist only serve to confirm the truth�he's a raging moderate. And satirists don't do well with moderates, especially thoughtful ones. In addition, Obama rarely makes gaffes and has no salient physical or temperamental features. And sinking popularity isn't a critique. Even SNL's main rap on him is his unflappability, hardly a vice in a world leader.
Trudeau says in the interview that �Any obvious satirical target I pass up is usually spared because of a failure of imagination.�
The interview would make a good comic strip, wouldn�t it?
What sorts of petty vandalism did you engage in on Halloween?
 I got in trouble for chalking somebody's driveway with vulgar words one time.
As an adult, I also got in trouble with my wife one year when a neighbor and I escorted our young kids, and we ourselves trick-or-treated our friends and neighbors for cocktails and beers. We got too many. Not our fault for being overserved.
The Amish breed Standardbreds, trotters and pacers, for transportation. They are longer and heavier than Thoroughbreds.
It's a delight to see an Amish trotter weaving through the strip mall traffic in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, head held high, prancing along, and mostly keeping up with in-town traffic.
This one was tied to a lamppost while the couple shopped at GoodWill.
Another below the fold -
Continue reading "Standardbred"
Wednesday, October 27. 2010
 It's taken me many years to realize that I can really only take in one piece of art per day. One painting - not a gallery-full. One poem, not a collection of poetry. One dance, not a whole dance concert. One piece of classical music, not a whole concert. One Chippendale highboy, not a room full of Chippendale.
Maybe it's my limitation in what I am able to process. Maybe it's my ADD, or maybe I am slow, but to me a wonderful thing is like a found jewel, or like finding an ancient coin washed up on a beach.
I assume that the people who make these things put a lot into them, and they can demand the same of me.
Thus one very special thing per day is plenty for me. I do not like to linger in museums - I prefer to hit and run.
Correggio, Venus with Mercury and Cupid, c. 1520
How does Garrison Keillor know me this well, without having ever met me? This describes me to a T:
[Republicans have] transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic fratboys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong�s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt�s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we�re deaf, dumb, and dangerous.
Truth is, I am a registered Repub but think of myself as a Conservative, despite my always testing out as "Centrist." Why is Gary so angry? Why are Lefties always angry? I am almost never angry, but often cranky and indignant.
Why does Gary hate me? I have enjoyed his humor very much over the years, but his politics are puerile and hyper-emotional.
I should add that I am a "know-noting flat earther" too. Yep, that's me: an Ivy Chem major and dumb as a post, clinging to my Bible and guns for dear life.
Tuesday, October 26. 2010
The new Queen Elizabeth. h/t, Theo.
She has the hull of a liner, but the superstructure of a Miami Beach hotel. Everything is quite elegant inside, but on ships like this you can too easily forget that you are on a ship at sea.
I prefer smaller ships, like many of the Holland-American line, that feel like big boats instead of like giant hotel-resorts.
Call me a snob if you want to. I like the Ryndam, below. I was looking at her because we need somewhere new to go to in 2011 - and I love ships 'n boats.
 I suppose people would classify me as a member of the American "elite."
Like several of us Maggie's Farmers, WASP New England roots, prep school and double-Ivy-educated, fairly well-bred with a good pedigree, decent table manners when sober, a semi-entertaining but pedantic dinner companion, and in a supposedly-respectable profession. I am a member of blue blood clubs (and clubs that used to be), and I try to watch my grammar. I wear tweed jackets and a bow tie in order to emphasize my existence - and my adherence to tradition. I avoid a flashy life style, and buy my work clothes at good old, fashionless Brooks Brothers like my Dad and Grandpa. I am not wealthy, but relatively comfortable for now, with my kids through with college.
Yes, I am in some elite category, for better or worse. But not an elitist, I think.
In my life, since my arrogant youth, I have dedicated myself to learning new things every day. We isolated and insulated elites can learn a heck of a lot of wisdom, and a lot about life, from getting away from the elites. America has no class system. Wise and savvy people are found everywhere, in equal proportions. Fools, also.
Most people are like me, just another human: Part fool, part smart, part insane, and a teeny bit wise. The latter came from life, not school.
The regular American fellow with his boots on the American ground and struggling on the American soil knows more about life than any elites in Washington. The "problem" is that most regular American folks do not seek power over others - and thus do not seek political careers unless they are personally insecure or failures (there are rare exceptions).
The tea party warns of a New Elite. They're right.
Elites are the people who overestimate themselves and underestimate misunderestimate others.
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