Maggie's Farm

Pope Benedict has essentially stated that the god that Jihadists worship is not the Christian God. Duh. That is hardly shocking.

I guess Benedict is not a dhimmi.

It's about time somebody important said it. I never bought all of that "it's all the same god" stuff. That was always lame. What sap came up with that idea, anyway?

Naturally, the "religion of peace" wants to behead the Pope now, and the idiots will set some stuff on fire and kill a few infidels, thus revealing where their true souls reside.

The Pope is wrong, I think, when he says that religion is not about hate. Some are, and some are not. He means "true religion."

The "Religion of Perpetual Offence" and Hate has taken his words precisely as they wish to take them, while ignoring his message. So much for "reaching out."

Now watch the northern European nations say things like "We must be more careful about what we say and how we say it." Indeed, one cannot be too careful around paranoids, for whom mindless seeking of offence and revenge are the favorite hobbies.

Perfect example of how people use "feeling offended" as a weapon. No apologies, please, Benedict. Nothing more than "I am sorry if you did not understand me."

Yes, it is still the Year of the Dog in the Chinese calendar, and we will make one last exception to our original desire to highlight sporting dogs, because this is a breed we love. I grew up around one.

Gentle giants. Males 130-150 lbs. Bred to do work both at sea and on land, the huge cuddly beasts pulled nets, rescued fishermen, hauled carts - and one, named Seaman, accompanied Lewis and Clark. Good choice. Interestingly, these dogs were probably of English origin, not North American, and are ancestors of the Lab.

Read about Newfies here. 

Yup, there they go controlling and manipulating prices again.

How dare they lower gas prices?

The country was just beginning to move toward alternative, green fuels, and suddenly they cheapen oil again. They cruelly squeezed us for a while, got rich on our poor backs, and now they give us a break, just when we all sold our Suburbans and bought these lame Priussies, sold our furnaces and replaced them with wood-burning stoves, and quit eating corn so they could make ethanol out of it.

But did they really give us a break? Naw. Now they will get rich on volume, instead of high prices. Crafty SOBs, aren't they? Almost like capitalists.

Who gave them the right to control prices? The government should make sure we have cheap   expensive  no  lots of  oil...oh heck, I don't know what. But the government should do it. Surely they know what is best, but it had better be cheap gas for my F150 - I need something to show for the taxes I pay.

Al Gore and the Dems, and the Greenies, have been arguing for higher gas prices, and higher gas taxes, for twenty years. They do not like oil. I do not know what they do like, but it isn't oil - unless it is in their own SUVs and their own furnaces.

Lowering oil prices is a crime against the environment and a crime against humanity. Big Oil needs to be investigated for this senseless, evil, greedy act of lowering oil prices.

Image: Edward Hopper's "Gas."

The blogger-commentator David Warren caught a bit of flak for raising questions about the behavior, and the "conversions" to Islam, of the two newsmen last week. He has written a reply to those who criticized him, here.

I have to say that I had similar reactions to Warren's as I saw the events unfold. I suspect that I would have done exactly what the two men did, but I would not have been happy about it. Renouncing your beliefs and your traditions, even at gunpoint, is not something to feel good about, even if the gunpoint renders the "conversion" invalid.

This is a better topic for our Dr. Bliss, because this is not my brief on this blog, and maybe I can extract a comment from her before I post this, but the story reminded me of the impossibility of getting through life without accumulating a dump-truck load of things to feel shame and guilt about.

No matter how careful and mindful we are, if we have a working conscience, we will accumulate that load. The offer of forgiveness from God is a miraculous blessing, but many of us find it impossible to forgive ourselves of such things - and I don't think that is a bad thing.

Similar to survival guilt, if I were Steve Centani I would find what I had done to save my skin to be a source of embarassment for many years. But I hope I would have had the fear,  practicality, and appropriate contempt for my captors, to do the same thing, and get home to my family and my warm bed.

Is it possible to get out in the world and to do things without accumulating shame and guilt? I doubt it. I think it's part of the burden of being human.

We all need someone we can feed on
And if you want it, you can feed on me
Take my arm, take my leg
Oh, baby, don't you take my head

Rolling Stones, Let it Bleed 

I see Praying Mantises all the time, motionlessly stalking bees and bugs in my rose bushes and raspberries. Huge bugs, but very well-camouflaged. Lady Praying Mantises are known to take the concept of giving head a bit too forcefully. They begin with the guy's head, then, once well-fertilized, end up consuming the rest of him. Maybe they get too excited.  Or perhaps it's a feminist thing, and it makes the charming Lorraine Bobbit (Hey, lonely guys! She is still looking for a date!) seem tame by comparison. NYT Science News

Editor's Note: Our Aliyah Diary author (see the Aliyah Diary category on the left to find out about it) has applied to the IDF, and should find out by today whether he has been accepted. He is in his fifties, but is in good shape.)

9/4/06 

For all the 535 km. biked from Jerusalem to Eilat, for all the landscape, for all the blazing desert, which felt as if at times heat blasted from earth's core, roasting us ventrally, for all this and more, but a few moments remain scorched into memory, and a few people, in fact, two, remain memorable.

By day three, we are cleared by the military to ride the Philadelphii road, the coarsely gravelled road parallel to the Egyptian border.  We are warned.  If you need to piss, face away from the Egyptians, as they may take a forward-facer as offensive and shoot in return.  But, facing northwards, the pisser contends with the prevailing southerly winds.

Warning.  We will climb 400 meters to Qadesh Barnea, where Abraham and Sarah paused on their route to Egypt, where Moshe paused with tens of thousands of ex-slave Jews on return from Egypt, waiting to hear from the dozen spies' (a prince from each tribe) report on the land of Canaan from which these Jews had been absent for four hundred years. Then, we will descend slightly to begin the one kilometer ascent to Mount Harif (Mount Spicy), highest point in the Negev.

I feel my heart would burst as I snake the last few meters to Qadesh Barnea. But I also know that if I dismount, I won't remount.  I do not look upwards, but keep nose to wheel, occasionally slaloming to make the upward ascent less steep. This ascent gives new meaning to aliyah.  Oddly, it is the terribly bad, unmusical tom-tomming, of the crew above that gives me impetus, if not hope, that I can arrive.

I stand on Qadesh Barnea, looking downward and north, into Israel, a
landscape not so different than what Moshe saw: shaley shoulders descending to the baked, barren desert, of multiple soft, pastel hues, dead to the eye.  No life.  To imagine a land flowing with milk and honey takes much imagination, much hope, or at least a belief in a certain G-d.  Perhaps, it also took Moshe's belief in this rag-tag passel of people that they could find or create such a land.  No, from here, after a heart-bursting climb, I see more a land that consumes its inhabitants.  I am no Moshe at this moment, certainly no Caleb nor Joshua.

"You think I'm over the hill?
Think I'm past my prime?
Let me see what you got,
We could have a whompin' good time."

From the AP
From CNN/Entertainment Weekly
From Rolling Stone
From Prefix Mag.
From Reuters

And, of course, Expecting Rain links every review to date.

The Rolling Stone piece is interesting in explaining the provenance of some of the songs (Dylan is at least as much of a thief as any other songster or artist, and he steals plenty from himself too), but most of the reviews I looked at miss the point. Bob has nothing "to say," in the socio-political sense, and hasn't wanted to have anything "to say" since he wrote My Back Pages (and some of his preachy re-born songs in the 70s). His songs are more like dreams. Some people still want him to tell them about life. Heck, all of our lives are more normal than his is: we could teach him about normal life. He's been wealthy, and covered with girls, fame, and adulation since his early 20s.

No, it's about the song. If a song - or any music - is effective, and has any staying power, it carries us, or invites us, into its own world, which is the world of the imagination, and, if it contains truth, the world of the heart and the soul. For me, that is what gives a song, or a piece of music or art, its quality of inevitability - not predictability - but the feeling that it was more discovered than constructed. "We live, and we die, we know not why, but I'll be with ya when the deal goes down."

Thunder on the Mountain, and Spirit on the Water, have that. I am not saying that they are immortal art, but they sure are up there with Muddy Waters and Stephen Foster. Dylan's road band can play anything, and I like him on piano.

But a critique of the American economy?!?!?!  Gimme a break. Or a commentary on Katrina? Idiotic. Some reviewers seem to expect Bob to be a musical blogger. This is a guy who has been writing about floods and weather almost since the time of Noah, like all the old blues guys do and did, and this is a guy who liked Barry Goldwater, who loves Teddy Roosevelt; a guy who wrote "I become my own enemy in the instant that I preach," and who very much enjoys making money doing what he does.)

It is a delight and a fascination to hear the latest Bob has offered us, for a pittance.  But to hear him live, amongst the yuppies, college students, and the grey-haired pony-tails with their pot smoke, and the kids, and the regular folk, is to really see how much he wants to give for as long as he can. Me? I am partial to his mean and nasty blues.

He is a troubadour.

I doubt that even cat-lovers consider "pussification" to be a compliment.

Being "a man" isn't the same thing as being male. Manhood must be practiced and learned. Responsibility, courage, strength, honor, honesty, dignity, dependability, emotional restraint, physical competence, risk-taking, determination, independence, handling failures, self-discipline,  endurance, not complaining, pitching in, doing the hard thing, doing the right thing, sacrifice, the willingness to kill or die to protect things you treasure - none of these virtues is an automatic gift of the Y chromosome, even if the genetic foundation is there.

They are difficult skills to learn, and most guys have to learn them the hard way - through their failures and disappointments - even if they have good role models. They are at least as difficult to learn as it is to learn how to be a good mother, or how to be a good citizen. I do suspect that they are more difficult to master, but those skills, and others, are the foundations of male self-respect. Guys have to have a code to live by, and it isn't "their feelings." Animals can live by their "feelings." And it goes for women, too.

A "feminized" culture (I use quotes because it's the term people use, but I don't think that strong, pioneer-minded women need to be weak or childish at all) which values emotional gratification, and gratification in general, over sturdy, adult, and demanding virtues, is lame and decadent.  I do not even need to bring religion into the discussion to say that life is not about our gratification. That's for little kids, social workers, Californians, and many of our lost-in-the-wilderness European and Canadian cousins (who seem to still want Kings to take care of them while they lounge in cafes and complain about their "benefits," for which better men and women are paying ...but being taxed to death for your achievements doesn't exactly inspire effort and risk, or any other admirable qualities. It just inspires a pathetic, and profoundly un-American and infantile "gimme mine" attitude).

Who could imagine Atticus Finch protesting about his benefits? Or wanting to get paid for his aching back?

 Classical Values reminded us of an archival and classic Kim du Toit piece, "The Pussification of the Western Male."

We have become a nation of women.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. There was a time when men put their signatures to a document, knowing full well that this single act would result in their execution if captured, and in the forfeiture of their property to the State. Their wives and children would be turned out by the soldiers, and their farms and businesses most probably given to someone who didn’t sign the document.

There was a time when men went to their certain death, with expressions like “You all can go to hell. I’m going to Texas.” (Davy Crockett, to the House of Representatives, before going to the Alamo.)

There was a time when men went to war, sometimes against their own families, so that other men could be free. And there was a time when men went to war because we recognized evil when we saw it, and knew that it had to be stamped out.

There was even a time when a President of the United States threatened to punch a man in the face and kick him in the balls, because the man had the temerity to say bad things about the President’s daughter’s singing.

We’re not like that anymore.

Read it all, and enjoy it.

Nathan sent us this piece from Israel:

A Father's Ode to His Lost Son

Sunday, August 27, 2006; B01
David Grossman, a leading Israeli novelist and peace activist, lost his soldier-son, Uri, earlier this month. Uri was serving on the front lines in Lebanon and was killed two days before the U.N.-brokered cease-fire. He died two weeks before his 21st birthday. His father delivered these remarks at his funeral on Aug. 16.

My Dearest Uri,
For the last three days, almost every thought has had a "won't" in it. He won't come home, we won't talk, we won't laugh. That boy with the ironic gaze and the awesome sense of humor won't be anymore. That young man with the wisdom so much more profound than his age won't be anymore. That warm smile and that healthy appetite won't be anymore, that uncommon combination of determination and tenderness won't be
anymore, his common sense and discernment won't be anymore. We won't have Uri's infinite gentleness, nor the calm that steadies every storm. We won't watch "The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld" together anymore, we won't listen to Johnny Cash with you, and we won't feel your strong, soothing embrace. We won't see you walking with your big brother, Yonatan, conversing with exuberant gestures, and we won't see you hug your little sister, Ruti, the love of your heart.

Uri, my beloved:
Throughout your brief life we all learned from you. From your strength and your determination to follow your own path. To follow it even if there is no chance at all of succeeding. We marveled at your battle to get accepted into tank commanders' course. You didn't give in to your officers because you knew that you could be a good commander, and you weren't prepared to make do with contributing less than you were able. And when you succeeded, I thought: Here's a man who knows his abilities in such a simple and sober way. Without conceit and without arrogance. Unaffected by what others say about him. Whose source of strength lies within.

You were like that from childhood. A boy who lives in harmony with himself and with those around him. A boy who knows his place, knows that he is loved, is aware of his limitations, and knows what's special about him. And, really, from the moment you bent the entire army to your will and became a commander, it was clear what kind of commander and human being you would be. Today, we hear from your comrades and soldiers about the sergeant and the friend, about the guy who gets up before everyone to organize everything, and who goes to sleep after everyone else has already dozed off.

And yesterday, at midnight, I looked around the house, which was a mess after the hundreds of people who had come to console us, and I said: Okay, now we need Uri, to help put things straight.

You were the left-winger in your battalion, and they respected you, because you held fast to your opinions without dodging a single one of
your military responsibilities. I remember you telling me about your roadblock policy -- you spent a lot of time manning roadblocks in the territories. You said that if there is a child in a car you pull over, you always begin by trying to calm the kid down, to make him laugh. That you always remind yourself that the kid is about Ruti's age. And you'd always remind yourself how frightened he is of you. And how much he hates you, and that he has reasons for that, and still, you will do all you can to make that terrifying moment easier for him, while doing your job, without fudging.

Like many of our posts, this one came out of a dinner conversation. Thanks to N for putting this together for us:

In 2004 petroleum products contribute about 40.2 percent of the energy used in the United States. This is a larger share than any other energy source including natural gas with a 23 percent share, coal with about a 22 percent share, and the combination of nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal and other sources comprising the remaining 14 percent share.

Petroleum products fall into three major categories: fuels such as motor gasoline and distillate fuel oil (diesel fuel); finished nonfuel products such as solvents and lubricating oils; and feedstocks for the petrochemical industry such as naphtha and various refinery gases.

Petroleum products, especially motor gasoline, distillate (diesel) fuel, and jet fuel, provide virtually all of the energy consumed in the transportation sector. Transportation is the greatest single use of petroleum, accounting for an estimated 67 percent of all U.S. petroleum consumed in 2004. The industrial sector is the second largest petroleum consuming sector and accounts for about 23 percent of all petroleum consumption in the U.S. Residential/Commercial and the electric utility sectors account for the remaining 8 percent of petroleum consumption.

 Fuel products account for nearly 9 out of every 10 barrels of petroleum used in the United States. Demand for motor gasoline alone accounts for more than 44 percent of the total demand for petroleum products. Other petroleum fuels include distillate fuel oil (diesel fuel and heating oil), liquefied petroleum gases (LPG's) (including propane and butane), jet fuel, residual fuel oil, kerosene, aviation gasoline, and petroleum coke.

Liquefied petroleum gases (LPG's), such as Propane, Butane and Ethane rank third in usage among petroleum products. They are primarily used as inputs, or ‘feedstock’, for petrochemical production processes. LPG's are also used as fuel for domestic heating and cooking, farming operations, and as an alternative to gasoline for use in internal combustion engines.

Electric utilities use residual fuel to generate electricity and depend on petroleum for about 5 percent of its total energy requirements.

Nonfuel use of petroleum is small compared with fuel use, but petroleum products account for about 89 percent of the Nation's total energy consumption for nonfuel uses. Examples of these uses are: Solvents such as those used in paints, lacquers, and printing inks, Lubricating oils and greases for automobile engines and other machinery, petroleum (or paraffin) wax used in candy making, packaging, candles, matches, and polishes, petrolatum (petroleum jelly) sometimes blended with paraffin wax in medical products and toiletries, asphalt used to pave roads and airfields, to surface canals and reservoirs, and to make roofing materials and floor coverings, pettroleum coke used as a raw material for many carbon and graphite products, including furnace electrodes and liners, and the anodes used in the production of aluminum, petroleum "feedstocks" used as chemical feedstock derived from petroleum principally for the manufacture of chemicals, synthetic rubber, and a variety of plastics.

Industry data show that the chemical industry uses nearly 1.5 million barrels per day of natural gas liquids and liquefied refinery gases as petrochemical feedstocks and plant fuel.  Petrochemical feedstocks are converted to basic chemical building blocks and intermediates used to produce plastics, synthetic rubber, synthetic fibers, drugs, and detergents. Petrochemical feedstocks also include products recovered from natural gas, and refinery gases (ethane, propane, and butane). Still other feedstocks include ethylene, propylene, normal- and iso-butylenes, butadiene, and aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and xylene.

One of our old hayfields has been over-run with Goldenrod. It makes for a pretty sight in August, but there is no hay there anymore, and the upper part is all Milkweed, to the delight of the Monarch butterflies.

Rather than trying to rehabilitate it as a hayfield by deep-plowing, re-seeding for a couple of years with red clover, and plowing again and re-seeding with good hayseed, the current low-cost plan is just to mow it every two years, and to let the animals and birds enjoy it - which they do. Don't need more hay. Sparrows, snakes, and Wild turkey like it as is. And deer, of course, by the bushel. And I have noticed that the beaver come out of the marsh to eat stuff in the meadow at night.

I have planted junipers next to the rocks, because with high growth you cannot see the rocks when you mow. Also, putting Bluebird houses on each rock, which the Tree Swallows seem to take over. Last summer I stupidly drove a tractor right up on one rock, about a 3' item I forgot about, and not only did it scare the bejesus out of me, but it also took another tractor to pull it off. Picture the front wheels of a Farmall four feet in the air, and a boulder jammed under the crankcase. Three Stooges.

Mark the rocks before you mow. A good adage in rocky Yankeeland, where glacial boulders are one of our main crops. Like measure twice, cut once.

You can see how the dang White Pines had been invading that field about 15 years ago. That process has been halted by aggressive border patrol, but it's a big job to roll it back. Cannot get a logging truck over the bridge, so it's sweat and chain saw. One step at a time. It's an excellent work out.

These guys need serious pruning, this winter. About 15' tall, but these are old-fashioned, and they bloom like crazy, with no care whatsoever.

These are very happy with full sun, but they do not require it. Half is enough, for most varieties. But some seem to desire sun, despite the labels, and others wilt.

I see a huge weed, though. A baby tree, pushing up through the bush. Missed it, somehow, but the photo makes it clear.

Its fate is sealed, at a time of our chosing. Gardening is war against wild nature. Nothing "green" about it. Most of gardening is plant-murder (aka "weeding").