Wednesday, October 3. 2007
 We all expect hardball and ugly politics when large amounts of power are in play, but there are tactics and methods which go beyond hardball. But the Dem attack machine, funded by Soros organizations, appears to have no conscience whatsoever - which is why I am so offended by it all. You can't really blame it all on Soros - they are working hand-in-hand. It's a war for them.
If everyone is going to get a bit ad hominem here, let's be reminded that Soros was a Nazi collaborator, despite being Jewish. OK, he was young, but it might say something about how he operates: he admits "that's when my character was formed." When someone at MoveOn claimed to "own the Democratic Party," they weren't kidding. The Dems jump when Soros says jump. Tammy: The purely fascist tactic of ritual defamation, condemning dissent, and attempts to silence voices that do not pledge allegiance to the Left, has now consumed local and federal Democrat lawmakers. In one of the most remarkable and shameless displays of Thought Police tactics, Democrats now carry the water for the Soros Gestapos which exist to squelch public discussion of which they do not approve or does not confirm to their nihilistic leftist agenda. Make no mistake--this is one of many volleys launched in an effort to revive the necessary and ultimate leftist grab for power--a return of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which would kill the freedom of market and listener driven talk radio.
I don't know whether it's about the Fairness Doctrine or about shutting up opinion preparatory to the election, but I do think it is all about intimidation. After all, they already have Imus' head as a prize - and as a warning. Read Tammy's whole rant.
Tuesday, October 2. 2007
 After years of a pragmatic, uninspiring and relatively non-ideological Bush, the GOP "brand" has become muddied and tattered. Thus we read depressing pieces like this one in the WSJ.
Although I do not consider myself a Republican, I do consider myself to be a Conservative, with erratically Libertarian aspects. I also believe, perhaps wrongly, that it is in the best interest of the Repubs to continue to stand for conservative ideas. However, I am fully aware that it is the only task of political parties to gain power and easy jobs with great benefits for their members, not to marry any ideology. I also predict that Iraq and terrorism will fade as the major political issue - not disappear, but move to second or third or fourth place. Why? Because Bush will have been successful in defusing some of the most ominous threats (yes, I do know Islam will be a chronic threat for many years). I would like to see a candidate who is able to refresh the brand in a warm, cheerful, optimistic way. Am I asking for another Reagan? Editor's note: Great minds think alike. Kudlow today: The GOP has some re-branding to do
Back in the days when I was involved with some research, I saw some iffy work done. The pressure to come up with some result was powerful, and people kinda sorta convinced themselves that it meant something. Here's how it worked: You spent six or twelve months accumulating data to test an hypothesis. You ran some basic statistical tests on the data, and it turned out that there was no statistical correlation to support your hypothesis. (Negative results are wrongly and rarely published.) THEN, so as not to waste your pile of data and all of the time spent (and with computers this is easy to do), you would ask the computer to find some pattern in your pile of data. Often it would find one - and that would be your published paper. Data-mining. You just re-write your hypothesis after the fact, and nobody ever knows. It's a form of lying, really. That ain't science - that's the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. Attack Machine has a nice example: Sagittarians are 38% more likely to break a leg than people of other star signs.
You can read his entertaining piece on the subject at What's Good for you Is Now Bad. In fact, clustering does occur on a random basis, to confound scientifically- and statistically-illiterate reporters and readers. Not to mention juries. Dr. Ioannidis of Tufts Medical School says in the WSJ: There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true." The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically, he determined.
That whole article is here. A great example of a compelling linear relationship below, from Conspiracy proving, beyond doubt, that the gradual loss of pirates is the cause of globalistical warmening. 
Monday, October 1. 2007
 Daisys are the friendliest of garden flowers.
Our Montauk daisies (aka nipponicum) have come into bloom this week, which seems very late, but their blooms are welcome. They have woody stems, succulent leaves which bugs leave alone, and perfect flowers. I bought these at Home Depot on a whim, a few years ago. As a beachy plant, this type needs full sun, and seems to enjoy poor soil.
Sunday, September 30. 2007
 To be 16 again... A quote today from the 16 year-old pup this morning: "Tell Mom when she gets home from church that I'm meeting friends at Grand Central. We're going to SoHo to hit some galleries and have lunch. I'll be back on the 6:30 train. Can I borrow the credit card? Thanks, Dad - Love ya. Wait, do you have any spare cash?"
When I was 16, NYC had the same gravitational pull on me that it does on her. It still does, I guess. When Aristotle said "Man is a political animal," he meant an animal of the "polis." I like 'em all: polis, suburban, and rural, but have always aspired to "rus in urba" (or is it "urb"?) as a half-baked and unsatisfying, but necessary, compromise. As long as we can hop a train, or hop in the car, we can have it all. Farm, city, and friendly suburban neighborhood. What a great country! So pleased with her vitality and investment in life that I forgot to ask whether she meant the 6:30 departure or the 6:30 arrival.
Tuesday, September 25. 2007
Six black athletes beat up and stomp a white kid at school. How did this become a racism incident worthy of the attention of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Simon at Classical Values. One might think that this would be the sort of thing they would wish to avoid. It's a neat trick to beat someone up and then claim victimhood, but I guess that kind of upside-down stuff is all the rage these days. Pomo logic, you know. We lawyers can learn a thing or two from this. It's the old saw about the kid who killed his parents, then asked for mercy from the judge for being an orphan. But, on the other hand, is beating up kids in the playground a real crime? Raging hormones, etc. Isn't it normal? I got beat up once in junior high school, and was too ashamed of losing the fight to tell anybody. (I did, eventually, get even with the jerk in a highly sadistic and thoroughly-satisfying manner. He is now a very successful real estate developer, and is still a first-class jerk.) Good comments - thanks
Monday, September 24. 2007
The cartoon below was posted at The Moderate Voice. In 25 words or less, deconstruct the verbal, visual and invisible text, taking into account gender roles, victimization, Marxism, Transgender Theory, the fact that "freedom" is a capitalist delusion, the Patriarchy, Imperialism, the Illegal and Immoral War in Iraq, Abortion Rights, the environmental crime of diaper use, George Bush's Psychology with special reference to his desire to kill women and children and his hypocritical unwillingness to kill unborn children fetuses, the U.N.-guaranteed Basic Human Right to Have Your Neighbor Pay Your Family's Medical Bills, and, of course, Everything That is Wrong With Amerika. On a serious note, though, I ask whether Bush is supposed to be the parent. I say "no." 
 A quote from the Columbia Spectator (h/t, Minding the Campus):
In the 1930s, the Columbia administration participated in what could be described as the coddling of the Nazi regime. In 1933, Nazi ambassador Hans Luther gave a speech on campus in which, according to a 2006 article in Spectator by Rafeal Medoff, he focused on Hitler’s “peaceful intentions” in Europe. Columbia maintained student exchange programs with Nazi universities throughout the ’30s, while, in 1936, our university sent a representative to the 550th anniversary celebration of the University of Heidelberg, even though, writes Medoff, it had “already had been purged of Jewish faculty members, instituted a Nazi curriculum, and hosted a burning of books by Jewish authors.”
Read the whole piece, which I feel is rather unfair. Columbia is hardly an anti-semitic institution. The failure is one of discrimination - of being unwilling to decide what is good and what is bad, or, as our NJ says, "what is worthy and what is not"... or, worse, in actually declaring that one thing - ignorant murderous scum - is worth welcoming into your home, but another (ROTC and campus recruiting) is not. In modern academia, Columbia is hardly unique in these failures of conscience, decency, honor, and vigorous adult judgement. Columbia is, in fact, an amazing place, but not so much so that the administration is immunized from Pomo Psychosis: they may even still believe that it is the "advanced" way of thinking. My message to Columbia today: Grow a pair, and stand for something. My old Mater has embarrassed me.
Sunday, September 23. 2007
 Maggie's Farm is a state of mind, and doesn't really represent a single literal farm, as The Barrister has said.
At the same time, to add some ambiguity to the idea, it is partly inspired by a literal farm which was given as a land grant by King George lll to my ancestors, many of whom are buried in the graveyard by the side of the road. It is in the Massachusetts Berkshire Hills, and close enough to Tanglewood for convenience, but I will not say where. It is remarkable that a place should be in the family, fully intact, after all of these years, although the original farmhouses burned down (cellar-holes still in place) and many of the barns, buildings, and the marble-cutting mill by the river have fallen down over the years. Much of our stone is marble up here, and much of it was quarried in the first half of the 1800s and pulled by oxen to be floated down the Housatonic River for shipment to NYC, Providence, and Boston for their fancy buildings. All of our barns and buildings have marble foundations beneath their rickety structures. Even the diving "board" at the stream's swimming hole is a 6x4x4 block of marble sticking out into the water which must have been left behind when the last load of marble departed. The marble was surely a nice income supplement for thse hardscrabble dairy farmers. One of the two surviving, and gradually being renovated, liveable quarters on the farm was originally built as a rustic and simple dwelling for the mill workers in 1820.
Assistant Village Idiot, in his post Wisdom from a Liberal of Another Era, quoted this paragraph - among others - from a 1938 E.B. White essay in One Man's Meat:  I'm down now; the barn is tight, and the peace is preserved. It is the ugliest peace the earth has ever received for a Christmas present. Old England eating swastika for breakfast instead of kipper is a sight I had as lief not lived to see. And though I am no warrior, I would gladly fight for the things Nazism seeks to destroy. (Living in a sanitary age, we are getting so we place too high a value on human life - which rightfully must always come second to human ideas.)
I say "Old England eating Islam instead of kippers." (I love kippers for breakfast.) The New Yorker has always had an anglophilic streak. But AVI asks: Does anyone at the New Yorker think that today?
 Read his whole piece, which I have been thinking about for a week. AVI rightly observes that today's anti-war folks would probably renounce pacifism, but claim that Iraq is not a place for Americans to die. That is debatable, but it seems that the bad guys need to be killed somewhere. Why not there?
But on to the bigger issues: Do we, today, tend to place too high a value on human life? Are there ideas we will die for, or communities we will die for, or will we only die for family? Is our precious selfhood, which some might term narcissism, more important than anything else to us and, if it is, what changed between 1938 (before the US was in the war) and today? Photos: Yes, we are E.B. White fans. Below is the Maine boathouse in which he wrote Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. A favorite E.B. White quote: "I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have a hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."
 If I were a preacher, I would like to have preached this sermon: Believing is Seeing, by R. Maurice Boyd of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church (1991).
It seemed relevant to all of the miracles reported in Luke 5. One brief quote: Science isn't a matter of believing only what you see. Science is a matter of believing and seeing by believing. One of the greatest scientists tells us that. Einstein said that it all begins in an attitude and the attitude is one of wonder which is not far from faith. He says that astronomy began not when somebody looked at a star through a telescope. It began when somebody said, "Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are." Say that seeing is believing, but if you do, don't expect to be a scientist.
Read the whole thing. Photo: A Hubble photo of infant stars in a star nursery.
Friday, September 21. 2007
Aimee at Historical Christian takes a detailed look at the past and present role of much-maligned and historically-abused indulgences (h/t, Dr. Bob). I do not know a lot about Catholic practice, but I liked what I read. I am a somewhat religious man. I worship and seek a relationship with a God of Truth and Mercy, through Jesus. I believe that sin is sin, and that action is required to undo it. I believe that sin alienates us from God and from our fellow humans. I believe that we are all sinners - but that's no excuse. Indulgences, which are a current Roman Catholic practice, are part of the way sin can be addressed. One quote: The practice of indulgences dates to the very earliest days of the Church, where it existed in nascent form (though the term “indulgence” did not come into use until later). It is based on revelation, is closely associated with repentance and forgiveness of sins, and the understanding and practice of it has and continues to develop. From the beginning it was a spiritual practice and did not involve money, but primarily involved prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to the poor. It wasn’t until around the 11th century (when Europe was moving from a barter economy to a money economy, and money became more widespread) that a donation of money to the Church according to one’s means, as a work of charity, began to be accepted as a spiritual practice that could result in an indulgence.
Read the whole, meaty thing. (It is fitting, but just by chance, that I post this on Yom Kippur.)
Wednesday, September 19. 2007
 Well, not exactly poisoned, but the majestic and beloved Eastern Hemlock (aka Canadian Hemlock) groves of the eastern US (range map here) have been under lethal assault by the Wooly Adelgid, a tiny bug native to Japan whose presence is obvious from the white cottony material on the bottom of the Hemlock needles. (photo below)
According to a report in Science Daily, the adelgid has killed 90% of the Hemlocks in the Shenandoah Valley. Help may be near in the form of a Japanese beetle that lives on adelgids, but maybe too late to save many of the groves. 
Monday, September 17. 2007
In response to my little post on societal codes and that version of the Code of the West, Gwynnie sent me the Cowboy Ettiket below. (A reader also sent me the Larimer County, Colorado, Code for Newcomers: it is tough, and certainly does not encourage anyone soft or risk-averse to move there.) 
Don’t squat with your spurs on. Don’t interfere with something that ain’t botherin’ you none. Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. The easiest way to eat crow is while it’s still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller. If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’. If it don’t seem like it’s worth the effort, it probably ain’t. It don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep. The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning. Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around. Don’t worry about bitin’ off more’n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger’n you think. Always drink upstream from the herd. Generally, you ain’t learnin’ nothing when your mouth’s a-jawin’. Tellin’ a man to git lost and makin’ him do it are two entirely different propositions. If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there with ya. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment. When you give a personal lesson in meanness to a critter or to a person, don’t be surprised if they learn their lesson. When you’re throwin’ your weight around, be ready to have it thrown around by somebody else. Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back. Always take a good look at what you’re about to eat. It’s not so important to know what it is, but it’s sure crucial to know what it was. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back into your pocket. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
OK, those are a bit jocular, but codes like the Larimer County one are dead serious. The more I think about social/societal codes, the more important I realize that they are. Sociologists probably think about this a lot. Codes of behavior - not skin color, not wealth, not national origin - are what distinguish "tribes", and tribes are communities of trust in which the behavior of others is predictable, comprehensible, and based on shared assumptions, morals, and sets of values. Old postcard: Long's Peak from Bear Lake, Estes Park, Larimer Co, Colorado
Thanks reader, for this photo of a late-blooming wild Beach Rose (Rosa Rugosa) yesterday on the New England coast. This tough import from Japan loves beaches, tolerates salt spray and dry, sandy soil, and its large ripe hips are good for making Rose Hip Jelly. Birds like the hips too, especially Robins. 
Sunday, September 16. 2007
 Peaches ripen in early to mid-September in Yankeeland.
Here's our first batch of peach chutney from our good tree: vinegar, sugar, raisins, hot pepper, whole black peppercorns, spices, lemon juice, raisins, etc. Do not overcook or you will lose that fresh peachy flavor. After we finish the jars of chutney, we'll do some peach pies to spread around the neighborhood. Maybe a couple of peach cobblers too. We have good neighbors,and home-grown and home-made still means a lot in Yankeeland. Important rule: When peeling and slicing, eat every tenth piece. No more, no less. You do it for health. Ripe peaches one hour off the tree have tons of zip to them.
Thursday, September 13. 2007
 Remember that famous lady who sued Winnebago after she put her RV into cruise control on the highway, then walked to the back for a cup of coffee?
She claimed that Winnebago had not made it sufficiently clear to her that cruise control couldn't drive the vehicle. When some people do idiotic things that defy the most elementary common sense resulting in "accidents," they see dollar signs. When most people do dumb things, however, they just blame themselves and leave it at that. What is the difference between those two categories of people? Read about Slate's Emily Bazelon at Overlawyered. How can any manufacturer anticipate every moronic thing a person might do with a product? They would need to hire teams of morons as product testers. Are such cases really about personal responsibility, or are they just about a class of greed-intoxicated people who are comfortable with ripping off businesses and their insurors? Image: A Winnebago of the sort that cannot drive itself down the road. For that, you need the more expensive model.
Wednesday, September 12. 2007
 The essay in Opinion Journal is subtitled "The cultural contradictions of libertarianism." This is a subject of great interest to me, and Kay Hymowitz is one of my heros - and someone who I am happy to have doing my thinking for me. A quote:
On the one hand, libertarians make a fetish of freedom; it is their totalizing goal. On the other hand, libertarians depend on the family--an institution that, in crucial respects, is unfree--to produce the sort of people best suited to life in a free-market system (not to mention future members of their own movement). The complex, dynamic economy that libertarians have done so much to expand needs highly advanced human capital--that is, individuals of great moral, cognitive and emotional sophistication. Reams of social-science research prove that these qualities are best produced in traditional families with married parents. Family breakdown, by contrast, limits the accumulation of such human capital. Worse, divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing leave the door wide open for big government. Dysfunctional families create an increased demand for state-funded food, housing and medical subsidies, which libertarians reject on principle. And in courts all over the country, judges who preside over the manifold disputes occasioned by broken families are forced to be more intrusive than the worst mother-in-law: They decide who should have primary custody, who gets a child on Christmas or summer holidays, whether a child should take piano lessons, go to Hebrew school, move to California, or speak to her grandmother on the phone. It is a libertarian's worst nightmare. A libertarian, according to Brian Doherty, "has to believe" that "the instincts and abilities for liberty . . . are innate," that we possess "an ability to fend for ourselves in the Randian sense and to form spontaneous orders of fellowship and cooperation in the Hayekian sense." But this view of the relationship between the individual and society is profoundly and demonstrably false, especially when applied to the family. Children do not come into the world respecting private property. They do not emerge from the womb ready to navigate the economic and moral complexities of an "age of abundance." The only way they learn such things is through a long process of intensive socialization--a process that we now know, thanks to the failed experiments begun by the Aquarians and implicitly supported by libertarians, usually requires intact families and decent schools. Libertarianism did not have to take this unfortunate turn. Ludwig von Mises himself warned that the attempt (of socialists) to undermine the family was a ploy to strengthen the state. Hayek, too, grasped the family's role in upholding the free market. Coming of age in Europe around the time of World War I, he stressed the state's inefficiency but also warned, more generally, of the limits of human reason. "Hayek's economics was rooted in man's ignorance," Mr. Doherty writes; so were his political views, which included both an enthusiasm for freedom and a Burkean respect for customs and institutions.
Read the whole thing. I think what Hymowitz is getting at, along with the many Libertarian thinkers she discusses, is that "fetishist freedom" is insane, and that freedom can only exist within the context of a strong culture of family, responsibility, duty, morality, and maybe even religion. The Founding Fathers recognized this well. The "diversity," "tolerance," and "multiculturalism" movements are destructive by undermining the cultural foundations that permit freedoms to prosper. We see the sad consequences of that in Europe today. On Maggie's Farm, we tend not to be "freedom fetishists." We are Constitution Fetishists, however, and we believe that individual freedom must enter strongly into the equation whenever government seeks to do something - that the balance must always tip in the direction of freedom. We believe that because it is in the nature of people in government to try to accumulate power at the expense of the individual and the locality. In other words, we believe (I think) that our government, like other public institutions like schools and the military, exists to provide the conditions for individual freedom and the human spirit to prosper. Photo: Ayn Rand
Tuesday, September 11. 2007
 "You haven't earned the right to be war-weary." Willisms. Indeed. The only people suffering in this war are the soldiers and their families, and it's part of their dangerous profession to do so for the rest of us. It is not "suffering" to hear the news in our comfortable seats as we dine on our chips, salsa, beer and Twinkies.
The politicization of this "small war" is a damn shame, and simply gives hope to those who want to destroy a free Iraq. Like it or not, we will be there for a long time and as soon as the bad guys realize that, some of the scumbags will find something better to do - like getting married and getting a job and trying life as sane, honest, peaceable citizens. Heck, we are still in Korea, and nobody complains about that except me. Furthermore, I was a skeptic about invading Iraq and figured Bush Sr. had some very good reasons to hold back (and he did). Am I a "moron dead-ender"? I don't think so. Some things are difficult: consider curing cancer, getting rid of cockroaches from a NYC apartment, eliminating crime, weeding the garden, removing corruption from New Jersey politics, killing terrorists one at a time - but it doesn't mean you don't work at them. "Can do." Moslem Jihadists are the cockroaches of the world today, and they are going to be with us for a long time because they believe they are pleasing their god by killing infidels. If some of them want to die in Iraq, fine by me. Related to above: Attack Machine considers "Copperheads Redux." Belgium: Bring back the Duchy of Burgundy. EU Referendum Time Magazine regrets the invention of the automobile, forgets how their magazine gets delivered. Blair Obstruction of justice? Gov. Eliot Spitzer's "black car meetings." You want a burger, and the burger wants to be eaten. Consenting adults, right? LA may limit fast food in some neighborhoods. As Coyote notes, this is mini-fascism. How are the Polar Bears faring? Small Dead Cute Baby Seals The worst school in America. Front Page Is there anything good about men? An essay/speech by Prof. Roy Baumeister to the American Psychological Assoc. (h/t, Minding the Campus) One quote: Culture has plenty of tradeoffs, in which it needs people to do dangerous or risky things, and so it offers big rewards to motivate people to take those risks. Most cultures have tended to use men for these high-risk, high-payoff slots much more than women. I shall propose there are important pragmatic reasons for this. The result is that some men reap big rewards while others have their lives ruined or even cut short. Most cultures shield their women from the risk and therefore also don’t give them the big rewards. I’m not saying this is what cultures ought to do, morally, but cultures aren’t moral beings. They do what they do for pragmatic reasons driven by competition against other systems and other groups.
Image is from the Harrison Hot Springs Sand Sculpture Tournament of Champions. What kind of cool sand to they have there?
Monday, September 10. 2007
 I met Erik Erikson on a couple of occasions, and was an admirer of the man. A lovely, sweet, gentle, dignified guy. Apparently, some think his work is obsolete. I think Young Man Luther, about Martin Luther, is wonderful work even if I don't agree with most if not all of his premisses.
His outlining of the typical "stages" of life, with their typical conflicts, holds up very well. The psychological capacity to handle the challenges that life presents is the key to relative satisfaction in life (the links in the quote box don't work): 1. Basic trust v. Mistrust. Birth to 1 year. From warm, responsive care infants gain trust or confidence that the world is good. 2. Autonomy v. Shame and Doubt. 1-3 years. Children start to use new mental and motor skills, and want to choose for themselves. Autonomy is created when the parents alow reasonable freedom and don't force or shame the child. 3. Initiative v. Guilt. 3-6 years. Children use play to experiment with what kind of person they might become. If the parent demand too much self-control the child might become insecure with who they are. 4. Industry v. Inferiority. 6-11 years. Children learn to work and cooperate with others. Negative experiences may lead to feelings of incompetence and inferiority. 5. Identity v. Identity diffusion. Adolescence. The adolescence tries to discover 'Who am I, and what is my place in society?' The resolution (or not) of this will result in your views on your future adult roles. 6. Intimacy v. Isolation. Young adulthood. Young people work on establishing intimate ties with others. Because of early disappointments an individual may not be able to form lasting relationships. 7. Generativity v. Stagnation. Middle adulthood. Generativity means giving to the next generation through work, children, or caring for other people. Failing to do this can make you feel that your life is meaningless. 8. Ego integrity v. Despair. Old age. In this final stage, people reflect on what type of life they led. If they are not happy with their life, they feel despair and fear death overmuch.
Like all stage theories, his is just a rough guide based on a lifetime of talking with people. "Typical" does not mean "right," and everybody struggles, at least at times, to do life. Erikson's work fits in well with that of George Vaillant, whose life work has been studying the way people cope with life. Good solid stuff.
Sunday, September 9. 2007
 Opie sent us this one:
A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.
When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"
"This is Heaven, sir," the man answered.
"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.
"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up."
The man gestured, and the gate began to open.
"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."
The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and
continued the way he had been going with his dog. After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.
As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
"Excuse me!" he called to the man. "Do you have any water?"
"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in."
"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.
"There should be a bowl by the pump."
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.
"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.
"This is Heaven," he answered.
"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too."
"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell."
"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?" "No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind."
Friday, September 7. 2007
Regarding the CNN series "God's Warriors," Christiane Amanpour said this: "In the Western and in the developed world, perhaps here in the 21st century we would have expected secularism and governance and politics to be what governs our daily lives," Amanpour told the bloggers. "We would not have expected, and perhaps we still don’t expect, religion to play such a real, present role in our daily lives, politics, and culture."
Who is "we"? What governs my daily life is family, having friends, making a living and juggling bills, being a Christian with a relationship with God, reading books, playing tennis, maintaining the homestead, planning this Fall's hunts, and riding and caring for the horses - not necessarily in that order. Oh - and trying to toss a half-decent post on the blog when I have a spare moment. I only care about politics and governance to be a good informed citizen - and because it is so screwed up these days: I wish I didn't have to think about it. Ms. Amanpour is a fruitcake. Whole story at Evangelical Outpost.
Thursday, September 6. 2007
It was interesting to see the various major linkers to that (surprisingly) controversial piece on Multiculturalism and Arabs we posted the other day because I had only been vaguely aware of one of the sites, and unaware of the others.  The most productive of blog visitors was reddit. That link- collector gets huge traffic, judging by the number of visit they sent over here: over 15 thousand. No comparison with what FARK can send, but powerful still.
We had thousands of visitors via linkswarm, another link-aggregator which seems to have a vast and loyal readership. We also had thousands from a site which our pure and chaste selves had never seen - Ernie's House of Whoopass. Ernie provides general links plus hard-core p*rn links which make visiting Theo feel like going to church. This photo is the most modest image I could find at Ernie's place. Also on the list is This Modern World, which posed an interesting, if sarcastic, contrast between the essay and the famous The America I Have Seen, by Sayyid Qutd (who I believe was the inspiration for Al Quaida and The Moslem Brotherhood). Clicked, an MSNBC blog, was late to the party but provided a few thousand visitors. Will Femia links stuff he finds interesting. A good gig. There have even been many hundreds of visitors via dirty.ru, a Russian blog (in Cyrillic). Cool. We hope we have gleaned a few new Maggie's fans from this spike in visitors. I do know that we made a lot of folks angry.
Wednesday, September 5. 2007
We have acres of Wild Thyme in the fields on the Farm, and some parts of the front lawn have more thyme than grass, making mowing a pleasant olfactory experience. We have too much really, because it prospers in areas where the soil is poor, dry, and gravelly, and where there is full sun. When you walk across it on a hot day it fills the air with fragrance and annoys the bees on its purple flowers. No need at all to grow thyme in the garden. You can drive over it occasionally and it doesn't seem to mind. Here's one of our smaller patches, carpeting the entrance to an old rickety shed: 
Our friend Nathan interviewed a group of Israeli citizen-soldiers and assembled their experiences in Reluctant Warriors, The book deserves a look by those who might be interested in Israel's army and in the minds of soldiers in a nation which seems to be in a permanently self-protective stance, and in which almost everyone serves. (Nathan is a child psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, and is the Wallerstein Research Fellow in Psychoanalysis. He moved from San Francisco to become an Israeli citizen last year. As regular Maggie's readers know, Nathan is the guest author of our Aliyah Diary series.) This is a selection from his chapter on "Yossi": Yossi’s elite unit jumps in to protect the Jewish people where others might hestitate. I begin with him so that the reader can feel, in the moment of battle, how difficult is the tension between being a fine soldier and being a fine man. Listen and place yourself in this boy’s post-midnight position. We have met many times during the Intifada, when he has a free weekend, or recuperating after injuries in action. One of six children, he has a rapid-fire delivery, especially of jokes, and can recite film dialogue by heart in two languages: he does Topol and Marx Brothers. His smile is winning. This conversation takes place from midnight to three a.m. before he has to return to three-week duty, and just before a national crisis: an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, is kidnapped; the army re-enters Gaza, re-enters Lebanon. As I write this, I am worried about Yossi, as he is the type of soldier who will be the first to jump in to save a life. His story tells of courage that Aristotle did not describe. We meet at midnight, as my schedule did not permit us to meet the one day he was home, and he politely offers to meet with me instead of sleeping his last night at home. He has until six a.m. before returning to base. At three a.m., after three hours walking, I am tired; he offers that he is free until six, but looks at me, and says that perhaps he should get the three hours of sleep. My sense is that he could have continued for the next three hours. He begins with a question. As is often true, the first question leads to more central, troubling questions, in this case about his rapid, momentary decision to capture a terrorist alive whom they had been sent to kill, putting Yossi and his unit at greater risk. He once told me how upset he was that in order to capture a suspect alive, Yossi has to kill an attacking guard dog in midair; uses a silencer. That week, he returns home with a puppy for his family to raise.
Continue reading "A book: Reluctant Warriors"
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