Monday, September 3. 2007
To new visitors: Thanks for stopping by, and check us out if you have a minute. You might enjoy our uniquely eclectic (or so we claim) and generally friendly site - even when there is disagreement. In fact, we welcome disagreement and lively but civil debate. Re the topic of multicultural understanding, this commentary which we erroneously attributed to William Haynes, but which is actually from Rants and Raves in 2006 (thanks for the correction, readers). Please read it, friends, and discuss politely: Observations on Arabs Since the beginning of the Iraq phase of this conflict of civilizations, I've experienced the teeth-grinding frustration of watching both pro- and anti- Iraq sides make the exact same mistake - that of supposing that these people are basically Americans in funny costumes. In this respect, George Bush and Michael Moore are equally clueless. I went to live and work in Saudi Arabia in 1998, and I "made my year" as expats there put it. That phrase means that I actually stuck out the whole year, instead of "running" from my contract, an occurrence so common that you only have to say "he did a runner" to explain why someone isn't showing up for work anymore. In Eastern Europe and the South Balkans, whenever I have gone to live in a place about which I had formed opinions, the actual experience of living there always radically changed those opinions, sometimes into completely contradictory ones. Most often, my academic research led me to form a beautifully coherent model, which experience turned into a semi-coherent collection of observations and tentative conclusions. In the case of the Kingdom, I went there with a certain sympathy for Arab grievances, a belief that America had earned a lot of hostility from "blowback" from our ham-handed interventionist foreign policy and support for Israel etc. I came back with the gloomy opinion that over the long run we are going to have to hammer these people hard to get them to quit messing with Western Civilization. And by the way, among "rational, fair-minded" non-interventionist libertarians, not a damn one of them has asked me, "What in your experience caused you to change your mind?" Instead what I get are gratuitous insults followed by insufferably condescending lectures about how wrong I am. So, with the caveat that one of the first things I learned was that the term "Arab" covers a lot of territory, here are some observations and some tentative conclusions about Arabs, more specifically about Arabs from the oil states and why we have misunderstood each other to the point that we are fighting a war with some of them and are pissing off the rest of them. I suspect that many of these observations also apply to Iranian Islamists, but I have never been there and note that Iranians are not Arabs and have a different cultural history.
Continue reading "Multiculturalism: "Arabs don't think like us""
Friday, August 31. 2007
 "Born at sea in the teeth of a gale,
The sailor was a dog, and Scuppers was his name."
I had a dog named Scuppers ("Scuppie" to close friends), who died young. He was a good boy, and a far better (ie, half-competent - liked to chew birds) retriever than my current goofy but love-intoxicated pup. I am remembering him now because he died at this time of year a few years ago. (His replacement is a nephew.) Margaret Wise Brown wrote Scuppers the Sailor Dog, along with a bunch of family favorites like Good Night, Moon: "A comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush" is how one of the splendid pups described our minivan in its usual get-to-school slovenly condition. Brown had a hard time getting published. Glad she finally got her stuff out, and with the wonderful illos. I don't know how you could raise a kid in this world without her books: the kids just won't "get it" without her.
 This came in over the transom:
Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails, and give her new clothes. Then she's yours.
- Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 21:11-13)
Find a prostitute and marry her.
- Hosea (Hosea 1:1-3)
Find a man with seven daughters, and impress him by watering his flock.
- Moses (Exodus 2:16-21)
Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal.
- Boaz (Ruth 4:5-10)
Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife.
- Benjaminites (Judges 21:19-25)
Have God create a wife for you while you sleep. Note: this will cost you a rib.
- Adam (Genesis 2:19-24)
Agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman's hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place. That's right. Fourteen years of toil for a woman.
- Jacob (Genesis 29:15-30)
Cut off 200 foreskins off of your future father-in-law's enemies and get his daughter for a wife.
- David (I Samuel 18:27)
Even if no one is out there, just wander around a bit and you'll definitely find someone. (It's all relative of course.)
- Cain (Genesis 4:16-17)
Become the emperor of a huge nation and hold a beauty contest.
- Xerxes or Ahasuerus (Esther 2:3-4)
When you see someone you like, go home and tell your parents, "I have seen a woman; now get her for me." If your parents question your decision, simply say, "Get her for me. She's the one for me."
- Samson (Judges 14:1-3)
Kill any husband and take his wife. (Prepare to lose four sons though).
- David (2 Samuel 11)
Wait for your brother to die. Take his widow. (It's not just a good idea, it's the law).
- Onan and Boaz (Deuteronomy or Leviticus, example in Ruth)
Don't be so picky. Make up for quality with quantity.
- Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-3) Photo: A potential nice wife for somebody, but she is a bit too skinny. She needs a guy who can cook.
Thursday, August 30. 2007
 "Darwination ensues."
I've read this drivel a million times, and I've never seen it refer to anything that remotely fits the expression. Posting a picture of Darwin in the comments thread of any news aggregator when somebody does something daring, or even something stupid, and then buys the farm, has become a sort of religion of its own. But it's a religion without any basis in fact. And what it really is is a kind of cowardice that wears the disguise of moral and intellectual superiority. If you never ride a bicycle without a helmet, you love to point at anyone that does and say: See, he had that coming --if they fall and hit their head. To be daring is to be stupid, and to be stupid is to be inferior. Ergo, I'm the top of the food chain by virtue of being an amoral coward. No you're not. This worldview is held by many who have been taught nothing for 16 years of school - and counting - but that Einstein meant everything is subjective; Schroedinger's Cat means you're not really lying when you are; glossing Hobbes means not only that all the brown people deserve to starve, but it would be useful if they did; the Cretan Paradox means anybody you don't like can be defamed; and reading Rousseau means you can have a high opinion of yourself for refusing to participate in any form of gentility related to civilization. You're not a boorish slob; you're authentic.You're not atheists, you know. Christopher Hitchens isn't really an atheist, so I doubt you are. What you are is an ingrate. You are squatting in the house that religions built, pulling things off the wall to make fires to warm your bones, all the while chanting in your brand new version of the that old-time-worship-everything- pagan sect. You're not willing to submit yourself to the rigors of participating in a sophisticated relationship with the metaphysical, so you say that persons that contemplate the sublime are just worshipping an invisible sky pixie. It gets you right off the hook for any intellectual and moral heavy lifting.
Continue reading "Roger's Rant du Jour: "Darwination Ensues""
Wednesday, August 29. 2007
Our wild Black Cherries are beginning to ripen, and the trees are filled with robins with purple cherry-stained beaks. I counted 17 happy Robins in one tree this morning. Many of them still have their immature plumage. Black Cherry is a common "pioneer tree" in New England. Some people call them "Chokecherry," but Chokecherry is a different species. Ours tend to be tall, gawky, with a brittle rust-red wood which is great for fires, smoking meat, and for furniture. Here's a low branch of one of mine. The robins have already eaten most of the ripe ones. Not edible for humans: you will choke on them. 
Is there anything in life that can or cannot be improved by government intrusion or take-over? Are those the key questions which are answered differently by Conservatives vs. Leftist/Statists, depending on how highly they value autonomy, enterprise, and individual freedom and the hefty burdens that go with it? I have often asked here what argument you can make for socialized medicine that you could not make for socialized food, or car insurance, or gas, or "legal care." I am pleased that Luskin sees it the same way. It reassures me that I am possibly not crazy.
Tuesday, August 28. 2007
 Do dog-fighting laws raise the interesting issue of libertarian vs. conservative views of the law? How about laws regarding public indecency? I think they do, and Prof B. agrees.
I am going to lie in the sun by the pool this weekend with a gin and tonic or two and give the subject a deep think, with the working biases that the Constitution's intent is to limit the power of government over localities and over the people, and that "that government which governs least, governs best." I will, no doubt, fall happily asleep before finding the magic resolution of the issue which would be quoted in all the journals had I only remained awake. In the meantime, the Prof quotes another commentator: Update from Alex Tabarrok: "After attending dogfights it's rumored that on some nights Michael Vick would continue his bloody activities by dining on cow's flesh. No word yet on whether prosecutors will be seeking additional prison time."
Living with ambiguity is part of maturity, I am told. I'm working on that.
Thus asks Firedoglake. Definitely - twisted as a pretzel, every last one of 'em. You can just tell by how often they talk about values and Jesus and families and guns and war and all that: it's a cover-up, of course, so their lace undergarments don't show. To prove my point, use the "Sen. Larry Craig Test": When next in the presence of a suspected Republican, stamp your foot twice on the ground. If the suspect turns and looks, it's proof that you have a twisted perv in your vicinity. (Apparently that is the highway and airport men's room signal that you are looking for fun. Barney Frank can fill you in.) To be serious for a moment, though, I feel sorry for folks like Larry Craig. Leading a divided, furtive life as he appears to have been doing must be a terrible way to live, and it should not be necessary in 2007. The moral of the story remains this: if you want to be in public life, decide how you want to deal with your personal stuff first... unless you happen to be a Dem, in which case you are immunized.
Monday, August 27. 2007
Over the past several months, we have posted quite a bit on poverty in America, noting that government has little further power over it because it is usually the product of bad choices (eg drugs, no fathers, and the like), bad luck (catastrophe, mental illness), laziness, or immigration (1/4 of our poor are recent legal or illegal immigrants), and it has been more than adequately demonstrated that the average caring government program only damages people in the end. Now we have new data on American "poverty". If you leave out the illegals (who are included), it looks like the American poor are doing pretty well. Better than I would have thought, and good news for America. Furthermore, our census data on income do not include government benefits such as housing subsidies, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare and the like. We are doing well by our people, and we should recognize that.
 Born in Dublin, raised in New York City, Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) epitomizes beaux-arts sculpture.
The subject arises because a friend was banging around the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site (his summer home) in Cornish, NH last week. This place was news to me, and my knowledge of Saint-Gaudens was minimal. His summer home has hosted artists like Winston Churchill and Maxfield Parrish, and was Woodrow Wilson's Summer White House. Photo is his sculpture of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, a mean, tough SOB - and it shows (Apologies to our Georgia readers, but don't blame Sherman. Blame Lincoln and Grant. Sherman was following orders when he fought and burned his way through Georgia).
Sunday, August 26. 2007
A birthday with an "0" in it, down on the coast last night. Nice views from the place, with some good-looking duck hunting spots to bear in mind for November:  Water toys ready to go: 
View from the driveway: 
Friday, August 24. 2007
 According to our friend Sippican, who kindly forwarded this photo of Sonny Boy Williamson, King Biscuit Time, later known as King Biscuit Flour Hour, was the longest-running radio program in history.
Williamson (posted yesterday) was their first featured performer. Photos like this one lead me into the wonderful Southland of my imagination.
Tuesday, August 21. 2007
The News Junkie referred to academic blackballing this morning. Here's an excellent example of the academic McCarthyism that goes on today, from the NYT. (I hate to use the term "McCarthyism" because, although he was a crank, I am not convinced that Joe McCarthy was all that far off.) It's about Dr. J. Michael Bailey, a sex and gender researcher. Scientific debate is fine, but you are not supposed to use live ammo. When scientists begin using live ammo they have abandoned persuasion, so it makes you rightly doubt their confidence in their positions. By the way, we wrote about the Transgender thing here and here. At this point, I believe that there is more politics than science in the whole subject.
 Ours are in bloom now, and will continue through September. These small trees will survive up through Zone 6, but in Zone 6 they prefer some shelter from the winter winds, and they are slow to emerge from dormancy (they look dead).
They are common in the South, but up here people are stunned by such a brilliantly summer-blooming tree and don't know what it is. They like to be pruned properly, and heavily mulched, and need full sun to produce those blooms. A little fertilizer, too. This is a young plant, with three main stems. I much prefer them with multiple stems rather than with a single trunk. The exfoliating bark is interesting too. 51 varieties here, with photos. Most of our cultivars are of Asian descent, but there are native species. More photos, and how to grow them, here. Growing plants on or above their zonal limits is always an interesting challenge for us gardeners. A fully-rational person would not bother.
Monday, August 20. 2007
Physicists ask whether existence is a virtual reality. Neurophilosophy. Of course it is. I think, therefore I am a confused SOB. But existence sure feels real when you have a sore hip, or when you are 21 and your girlfriend dumps you, or when you can't pay your bills. No need to drop a little acid before reading the links: reality is strange enough on its own.
 Do not, under any circumstances, miss Gerard Van der Leun's photo essay on the "Hempfest" in Seattle, Washington. American Digest --Stoned to Death in Seattle: Hempfest 2007 Comes to Town The United States Government wastes a lot of money, time, and effort composing dreadful anti-drug messages that they broadcast on AM radio right after Art Bell goes to sleep, and on television in the wee hours just before the test pattern comes on. Gerard should be given all the money, and we could all gather our kids around the computer, point at his pictures, and tell them: "I don't care if you become an alcoholic, a pederast, a serial murderer, or god forbid, a State Senator; but under no circumstances will I allow you to end up like these people." The 9/11 Truthers lend a touch of verisimilitude to the proceedings, too. Just say...um... wait... What?
We brushwack each half of this meadow only every other year, for the benefit of the wildflowers and the wild critters. It is full of milkweed, goldenrod, daisy, Black-eyed Susan, Queen Ann's Lace, Indian Paintbrush, asters, etc. It is also full of large protruding boulders which which make mowing a challenge. It is best to have somebody march in front of the tractor to spot boulders, turtles, stumps, and other hazards. I am gradually planting junipers, apples, Chinese Chestnuts, etc. next to each serious boulder, to mark them. If it were fenced, it would make a decent cow pasture or, as the yougest daughter opines, a good llama pasture. Our next project in this meadow is to push back the White Pines which were invading the meadow like Burnham Wood during a period of lazy mowing a while back. At this point, it's a big chain-saw job: probably need about 50-100 trees down to restore the meadow's original edges. 
Sunday, August 19. 2007
 From Indians to Pilgrims to Yankee fishermen to Portuguese fishermen to artists to tourists to gays, Provincetown has seen a lot over the years.
Maybe the yuppies will be next, and gentrify it like they did to the Hamptons and Nantucket. My favorite restaurant there: The Lobster Pot. Lots of Portuguese stuff, like Kale Soup with linguica, baked stuffed Haddock with molho tomate (strong cumin) and onion, and Squid Stew. They also do a great job with tuna belly (toro) on the grill, when they can get it: it's the best - burnt on the surface, rare on the inside, and dripping with fat. My Mom, proper and refined Yankee lady that she is, likes to schedule our annual drive up from Wellfleet to P-town and the Lobster Pot to coincide with the Gay Carnival Parade. She thinks it's a hoot. P-town in the 1940's: Sippican
Saturday, August 18. 2007
How much does happiness depend on money and opportunity? Or is happiness just a fortunate state of mind? I tend to think the latter. Money provides choices, which are wonderful things, but choices do not make people happy. Indeed, I believe that many would be happier with fewer choices in our choice-intoxicated America. Arthur Brooks in City Journal on What Really Buys Happiness? It's mostly about income. A quote: Edwards is one of a group of liberal politicians, policymakers, and social activists who want to reduce economic inequality through greater taxation and redistribution of wealth. And their plan draws inspiration from a particular academic theory: that inequality is socially destructive because it makes people miserable. As a scholar working in the field of public policy, I have long witnessed hand-wringing about the alleged connection between inequality and unhappiness. What first made me doubt this prevailing view was not some new scholarly study but rather that when I questioned actual human beings about it, few expressed any shock and outrage at the enormous wealth of software moguls and CEOs. On the contrary, they tended to hope that their kids might become the next Bill Gates.
Read it all. It appears that liberals and the left tend to be unhappier people in general. Perhaps we conservatives just are genetically blessed with sunnier dispositions.
Friday, August 17. 2007
 "People like to say today that 'diversity is our strength.' It's almost like a State Religion. But diversity isn't our strength: freedom is our strength. Uncontrolled cultural diversity is the story of the Tower of Babel."
Tom Tancredo, as heard (paraphrased) on the Monica Crowley radio show on WABC a few weeks ago. We have often addressed "diversity" and "tolerance," words which in their pomo incarnations represent appalling if not insane ideas. (For a few examples, No Lux, No Veritas, Scared by His Own Research, Trust Cues and Tribalism, and Steyn on War, Demographics, Multiculturalism, Tolerance, and the Masochism of the West.) From Daniel Henninger in the WSJ yesterday, The Death of Diversity, a quote (h/t, Loyal Reader): Diversity was once just another word. Now it's a fighting word. One of the biggest problems with diversity is that it won't let you alone. Corporations everywhere have force-marched middle managers into training sessions led by "diversity trainers." Most people already knew that the basic idea beneath diversity emerged about 2,000 years ago under two rubrics: Love thy neighbor as thyself, and Do unto others as they would do unto you. Then suddenly this got rewritten as "appreciating differentness." George Bernard Shaw is said to have demurred from the Golden Rule. "Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you," Shaw advised. "Their tastes may not be the same." No such voluntary opt-out is permissible in our time. The parsons of the press made diversity into a secular commandment; do a word-search of "diversity" in a broad database of newspapers and it might come up 250 million times. In the Supreme Court term just ended, the Seattle schools integration case led most of the justices into arcane discussions of diversity's legal compulsions. More recently it emerged that the University of Michigan, a virtual Mecca of diversity, announced it would install Muslim footbaths in bathrooms, causing a fight.
Read the whole thing. There's a video too. (Too bad he got the "Do unto others..." bit wrong - it sorta spoils a good piece, but you get the point.) Image: I get a kick out of that old Benetton ad. which was on all of the busses when I lived in NYC.
Thursday, August 16. 2007
Before the SAT, colleges gave their own achievement tests to see whether you were prepared. In 1926, the SAT was intended to be a "progressive", democratizing influence by testing your "aptitude" instead of your mastery of Latin, Greek, French, chemistry and trigonometry. At the time, the elite prep schools did the best job preparing kids for the elite colleges' requirements. Charles Murray on educational testing, college admissions, class and genes. He suggests dumping the SAT, but keeping the Achievement Tests. His discussion makes sense to me: a college ought to be able to state what they expect in terms of preparation. On the same subject, Ivy Leaguers take untimed SATs. ADD and dyslexia, ya know?
Wednesday, August 15. 2007
 We like all of the DR products (a great Vermont company) but the one we use the most on the farm is our sturdy and indestructible 17 hp Field and Brush Mower.
The machine really does take down 2" saplings and chews them up, and it can run faster than a weary, sweaty, dirty man can walk. The only downside is that using the thing is hard work: you have to muscle it around to turn and maneuver it, and it is heavy. Using it for a few hours ends up being a good work out, unless you are just mowing tall grass on a flat surface. I hate saying it, but it isn't a machine for most females. We tend to use it in places that the tractors can't get to with the brushwacker, and on slopes that are too steep for the tractors.
Tuesday, August 14. 2007
 When the Marquis de Lafayette snuck out of France against the King's wishes in 1777 to join the many unemployed French - and some German - officers who wanted to aid the Revolutionary cause, he was 19 years old, with a pregnant, lovely - and enormously wealthy - wife at home. He loved to spend her money, but what he really wanted was the glory of his military ancestors, most of whom, like his father, died in battle.
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.
Sunday, August 12. 2007
Share Maggie's Farm - don't hoard us! Help keep us inspired and chugging along during these dog days of summer by sending us around to your million friends. That is all we will ever ask for. But if our readers insist on continuing to mail cash to our Maggie's account, well, that is just great too. Nothing smaller than wrapped ten-packs of circulated 100s, please, or it isn't worth our trouble. Mail cash to: Mr. Churchie la Femme, c/o CYA Assets Associates, Ltd, George Town, Grand Cayman. 
Photo: A handsome 1925 Doble steamer. I remember my Granny explaining to me why her next-door neighbor had a funny low extension on the back of their garage. The prior owner needed the extension to fit their fancy new Stanley Steamer. That funny lean-to extension remains there today, and is surely useful for today's cars.
Friday, August 10. 2007
 Since the News Junkie plans to stop by Cuttyhunk this weekend, I thought I'd do a piece on this place which is mainly known to East Coast sailors for its large harbor.
Cuttyhunk is the outermost of the chain of Elizabeth Islands that stretch from Cape Cod southwest into Buzzard's Bay between the MA shore and Martha's Vineyard. Most of the Elizabeths are owned outright, but not Cuttyhunk, which has a year-round population of 52 (many more in July and August). Cuttyhunk is two miles long and about a mile wide. It is mostly wild. The island is not convenient at all, but it ain't a cheap place to buy- example. If you don't have a boat, you get to Cuttyhunk from New Bedford on the M/V Cuttyhunk. Here are some Cuttyhunk photos. Here's a history of the lighthouse. Today's weather report on Cuttyhunk: 54 degrees at noon, with drizzle. Photo is the steeple of the 1881 United Methodist Church. (That is a Striped Bass, if I am not mistaken.)
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