We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
On this day in 1683 King Jan Sobieski of Poland arrived at Vienna to break the siege of the Turks and rescue the Christian West from the Hosts of Mohammed. The rout of the Ottoman troops before the gates of Vienna by the Polish hussars gave us a little breathing room, a coffee-and-croissants break that lasted for the next three hundred and eighteen years.
The Battle of Vienna in which King Sobieski defeated the 100,000-man army of "Islamic hordes" under Kara Mustafa Pasha was one day after the arrival of the Polish army with their winged hussars - Sept. 12. The western expansion of the Caliphate ended there, but the push back took many years.
We don't post much about interior decorating here, but we do post about things we learn about.
Since the lad and his bride are moving into a new place, I thought I'd re-post these useful tips as I attempt to supply them with oriental rugs from my stash.
I did the research. For a plain wall or over a table, etc, your main picture should be hung so the center of the picture is 57" from the floor. In other words, eyeball height for a slightly short person. 57" is known as "gallery height." It feels right and it looks right, but it can be lower in a seating area.
People tend to hang 'em too high, and it feels awkwardly unbalanced and looks a little silly.
Obviously there are all sorts of special situations - mantles, staircases, massed images, castle walls, giganto modern oils, etc. Years ago, when we needed a decorator's help with some rooms, he taught us that it's good to hang some pictures low, at seated-eyeball height in seating areas.
I recently re-hung some pics like this on the right, in the Farm HQ, and it feels right to me. The David Maass woodcock print is centered at about 57", and the two smaller hunting prints are obviously lower, at seated-eyeball height.
The debate among Republicans over the 2012 presidential nominee seems to divide between those favoring management skills and those favoring inspiration.
Americans have oscillated between the two. Eisenhower = management; Kennedy = inspiration; Johnson = neither; Nixon = management; Ford = neither; Carter = neither; Reagan = inspiration; Bush (Senior) = management; Clinton = inspiration; Bush (Junior) = management; Obama = inspiration.
These aren’t “pure” characterizations, but rather what aroused the balance of electorability. It was the persona that was the characterization of the nominee.
This may, or not, be applicable to 2012, but I tend toward thinking it very well may be.If so, then, that may explain my leaning toward Romney (and Pawlenty before he dropped out).
On the other hand, one can as well posit that Obama = neither, in which case the oscillation would favor inspiration. That might favor Perry.
On the other hand, the theory may be worthless. The test of a theory is in its simple predictive power. 2012’s election will tell. Regardless, however, internecine battles -- as opposed to civil discussion and debate -- among Republicans will weaken the 2012 chances of defeating Obama. That is a proven theory.
Comments?
From the Comments thus far, let me make this clearer: I'm talking about the persona or characterization at election time, not what comes after.
"Red meat and gin" was her rallying cry when the food world's puritans dared to promise long life through nervous nutrition; she scorned grilled vegetables as "burnt and undercooked at the same time". When asked to describe her guilty pleasures [...] she was sure to respond with her usual cheerful defiance, "I have no guilt".
My friend Mark Safranski, at his blog Zenpundit and contributions elsewhere (like Small Wars Journal), provides some of the best digestions of complex matters of national security policies and debates that a layperson can find.
Safranski has turned his attention to R2P, Right To Protect, as its advocates term it. It is the liberal internationalists’ concept of how US foreign policy ought to be. R2P reflects limitations of the US abilities to militarily intervene elsewhere as perceived by our liberal elites but raises our humanitarian impulses selectively by them to justify certain interventions, again, as they perceive which to be worthwhile. Further, R2P raises hazy international law or consensus of international liberal elites to supremacy over national law or consensus.
One of R2P’s main propounders, Anne Marie Slaughter, even advocates each US agency and members of our judiciary to act independently of Executive or Congressional oversight or law to conform to the consensus of foreign liberal elites. Slaughter is not just someone blathering. Slaughter was Dean of Princeton's influential Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from 2002–2009 then from 2009-2011 she served as Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, now back at Princeton. Slaughter’s thinking is telling in the pieties mouthed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama as they ignore US laws, ignore Syria’s worse repression and threat as they intervene in Libya, and extol a hostile majority in the UN to undeserved credence. Slaughter isn’t alone. Obama administration insiders Samantha Powers and Susan Rice are R2P foxes in the henhouse.
As Safranski sums up:
Slaughter is a revolutionary who aspires to a world that would functionally resemble the Holy Roman Empire, writ large, with a diffusion of power away from legal process ofstate institutions to the networking informalities of the larger social class from whom a majority of state and IGO officials are drawn, as a global community.
At first glance, disaggregating the state and granting at least a measure of sovereignty to its component parts might appear to weaken the state. In fact, it will bolster the power of the state as the primary actor in the international system…Giving each government institution a measure of legitimate authority under international law, with accompanying duties, marks government officials as distinctive in larger policy networks and allows the state to extend its reach.
Actually, it extends the uncontrolled reach of liberal elites within our government to act regardless of our laws or popular will.
Safranski comments:
R2P will require the imposition of policy mechanisms that will change the political community of the United States, moving it away from democratic accountability to the electorate toward “legal”, administrative, accountability under international law; a process of harmonizing US policies to an amorphous, transnational, elite consensus, manifested in supranational and international bodies. Or decided privately and quietly, ratifying decisions later as a mere formality in a rubber-stamping process that is opaque to everyone outside of the ruling group.
Who is to say that there is not, somewhere in the intellectual ether, an R2P for the environment, to protect the life of the unborn, to mandate strict control of small arms, or safeguard the political rights of minorities by strictly regulating speech? Or whatever might be invented to suit the needs of the moment?
Well, there is such in the “intellectual ether”, as in this example from William Magnuson, lecturer on international law at Harvard, and a graduate of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs:
While it is undoubtedly true that the loss of life is a greater harm than the loss of free speech rights, the major arguments (moral, legal, and consequential) in favor of the responsibility to protect doctrine apply equally to free speech as to crimes against humanity. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right. The widespread suppression of speech may cause us to doubt that state sovereignty is worthy of respect under Rawls’s and Walzer’s discussion of well-ordered societies. An obligation to intervene to protect free speech may persuade states to refrain from muzzling the media or jailing dissidents.
Transnational self-elected elites making “the world safe of democracy” or for their own supremacy? How many have children serving in the military, I wonder. Just look at how few in our State Department were willing to serve in civilian reconstruction in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yeah, “leading from behind”, as in Groucho Marx saying, “follow me, you go first,” making a tragic joke of core national interests in security that are actually recognized by average Americans, substituting instead rationalizations for scattered interventions although nice not essential and frittering away our lives and resources.
Added: Mark Safranski posts on this post, adding the key conclusion:
This is not an argument over whether genocide is bad and should be prevented or the positive good of Western liberal societal values but rather over how power will be exercised in our name, for what reasons and by whom. Any good ends sought under a putative R2P doctrine can be done today if the political will for intervention is present. That will is crystalized when the ends, ways and means are scrutinized in open, free, debate under our constitutional norms, not by a self-appointed vanguard.
Also, read Saints Go Marching In in The National Interest: (H/T: American Power blog's Donald Douglas)
. The conclusion:
As Libya shows, war and utopia should not be mixed up. War is too serious, utopia too unserious, for that.
The other day I went into my favorite Mexican restaurant, favorite because it doesn't serve the usual Americanized border food of just tacos and burritos but real(er) Mexican food. I had the goat meat soup, lifting with my hands the flesh covered bones to chew on. Mexican chicken soup is particularly tasty, so I suggested to the owner adding chicken feet to nibble on. He replied that it was also a favorite of his, we both remembering a restaurant in Ensenada that served it and was always packed with locals and foreigners (like my father and me, who like other poor people in our youth made good use of every part of the chicken), but has been displaced by tourist food for the nearby cruise ship port.
There's a post that is circulating that humorously and realistically describes the staples of immigrant Jewish foods. I grew up on them all, and delight when I make some of them or rarely find a restaurant that gets one right. My boys dig in and ask why they haven't had more of this. I joke that McDonalds is not named McDonaldwitz. Many complain that such foods are cardiac arresters. I just finished a series of extensive heart tests, the cardiologist surprised that my heart is much younger than I am.
Lean cuts of beef, like top round and flank steak (London Broil), are not worth grilling, and should not be grilled, without marinating them overnight first. Cooks say 10 hours at bare minimum. Otherwise, these dense, wood-like cuts are like chewing gum when grilled rare, and like leather when overcooked.
In other words, something you could easily choke on, requiring an annoying Heimlich Maneuver.
They have to be marinated in enough acid - vinegar or citrus -to loosen up the meat. Some alcohol - wine or beer - helps in addition to the vinegar. Many people seem to like to simply marinate these cuts overnight in pre-mixed Italian dressing. (I use plastic garbage bags for marinating things in.)
Even with a good 20 hours of marinating, London Broil needs to be sliced thin after grilling.
At dinner last night, with my lad, we observed the bartender administer the Heimlich Maneuver, successfully, to a person choking on a bite of steak. Seemed like quite a coincidence with our Heimlich post yesterday.
Turned out that the bartender, Manuel, is a part-time EMS guy and had performed this a number of times. Perhaps everybody thinks they know how to do it, but it doesn't hurt to review it all. Of course, the trick is to determine whether choking is a person's emergency, or whether it is something else.
They call choking a "Cafe Coronary" for good reason. Can look like a bad heart attack. Choking can kill you quicker than a heart attack.
Here's a quick reminder of how to do it. Need to use plenty of upward force with one hand as a fist. Don't worry about hurting them.
Does a restaurant have a duty to choking patrons? No.
What if a chunk of something is so stubbornly stuck that Heimlich doesn't work, and help is not quickly forthcoming? You can perform an emergency tracheotomy. A ball-point pen comes in handy.
Is there a meaningful difference between an 800 and a 770 on the Math section of the SAT?
My proposal for the SAT exams (which, for our overseas readers, is used to measure something called "college readiness" - although in the US today college readiness can mean ability to pay or to obtain loans and grants to pay. American colleges are full of kids who cannot even do basic trigonometry) is to make three sections, each with a fairly steep slope of demands from basic to subtle and advanced:
- Scientific and quantitative
- Literary, reading comprehension, and writing
- General academic information (ie history, the arts, religion, geography, etc)
Then to score each section with the usual academic letter grades, A+ to F (with A+ reserved for a perfect score because that means you know it all and can execute it without sloppiness).
If I had my druthers, I would add a regular IQ test also, but in the current atmosphere I don't think that would be accepted despite the fact that plenty of grad schools do require it. (I had to take an IQ twice, once for the army and once for grad school. I think maybe we had to take one in grade school too in order to assess our academic potential.)
One aspect of being "socialized" humans is the capacity to appraise the people we have any meaningful contact with. Most people get better at this, over time. Older is wiser, usually. We get too soon old, and too late smart.
These appraisals happen automatically. We know that most human "thought" takes place as non-deliberately as our digestion. We call that intuition: "I like the cut of his jib;" "She seems like a superficial ninny;" "There's something off about them but I can't put my finger on it;" "He's crazy;" "She strikes me as a strong, upright person;" "He feels calculating and devious;" "She seems full of fun, sexiness, and vitality;" "A schmoozer-saleman-type who, if you offer them your hand, takes you by the arm;""The guy seems very shrewd and clever;" "He's a gloomy Gus;" "Too needy;" "What a phony;" "She's a flake, but a good kind of flake;" "He's an Old Soul;" "He's got a personal agenda;" "This kid will go far."
We get a quick "feel" for people. Vibes. Our brains have a remarkable ability to form automatic and almost instant impressions of a person, accurately or not, from an abundance of information: social presentation, tone of voice, body language, posture, facial expressions, dress and grooming, use of words, style of interacting, and social signaling of all sorts. It takes around a fifth of a second, after all, to fall in love or in lust, and not much longer to think that you might, or might not, want to consider getting to know somebody. Of course, it pays to be careful, but most people mean well unless they are on the make in some calculating way, and everybody wants some things - but perhaps not from you.
When we have any interest and curiosity in a person beyond the superficial (driven by such things as business dealings, attraction, things in common, etc), we have to move past the intuitive impressions, which are often in error and contaminated by emotional and/or transference reactions, put our thinking cap on, and do a little active thinking about a person. People don't do it in the methodical way that shrinks do as trained observers and inquirers, but cover many of the same bases of human interaction. For some examples:
- intelligence, curiosity, fund and depth of knowledge, abilities, talents, wit, good cheer, interests, goals and dreams - do we get along - are we on the same page with shared assumptions and understandings? Same tribe? Do we speak the same language, so to speak? Or are we different in interesting ways? - quirks, eccentricities, weaknesses, criminality, and obvious flaws - respectfulness, decorum, and self-respect - sociability, manners, openness, depth, relatedness or self-centeredness, self-awareness - integrity, honor, self-control, level of BS, reliability, trustworthiness. Are they givers, takers, or neither; general emotional maturity and judgement - level of energy, vitality, and ambition: Are they fun or stimulating to be with? As Imus would say, "What do they bring to the table?" - level of life functioning (that covers a whole lot of territory)
along with other considerations, and, of course:
- Do they want something from me and, if so, what? (eg sex, money, love, favors, attention, status, casual social acquaintanceship, friendship, close friendship, Christian fellowship, help, companionship, collegiality, conversational amusement, or, as in most cases, little or nothing at all, etc.). If we're in an introspective mood, we might also ask ourselves what we want with them, and where we want to locate our boundaries with them.
Shrinks, when at work, attempt character assessment in a way that is analogous to a physical exam (ie "Come into the consulting room and take your social facade off. Strip to your psychological underwear. The doctor will be with you shortly, and you can let her know who you really are, what you are really made of, and what your private struggles are.). I am not impressed that, in the end, we shrinks make many fewer initial errors than the average thoughtful and perceptive person on the street. We just don't use the same lingo.
I began this post with the intention of writing about different levels of life functioning, with this as an intro, but this is already long enough for now. LOF can wait until later.
It's a better name for this wonderful business. Go onto their site and have them mail you their catalogues. It is a wholesome addiction.
Heather MacDonald has a good piece on the company at City Journal. They are making money. Wow - for-profit education. I actually had the idea of doing that before The Teaching Company existed. There's a big difference between idle dreamers and effective entrepreneurs, ain't there?
We use them often, but tend towards the courses on sale. If you go through ten or so of their courses, randomly-selected, you'll probably know more than the average recent college grad today.
The distinguished publisher of The Rumford Meteor has gone Hunter Thompson, or Carl Hiassen, or Rupert Murdoch, or The Onion, or something like that.
If Maine is Lake Wobegon on meth and welfare, this online newspaper captures the local ambience with, dare I say it, wit and wisdom.
Not only that, it's all pure fact. No wonder everybody in the Statehouse in Augusta (where's that?) reads it. And if Maine has any remaining local journalists, I'm sure they read it too.
It's a slice of America, and Mr. Sullivan has, I think rightly, recognized that colorful local online news is part of the future of journalism as the dead tree approach dies its slow death. Only problem: do people in Maine have internets?
How does one market a new online local (ie statewide) newspaper? Rent a billboard? Where?
Our lad is now based in Rome for the rest of the summer. He goes everywhere and tries to see everything. He sends these photos of Ostia Antica, aka "The Better Pompeii." It means "The Old Port," just outside of Rome. 100,000 people once lived there.
Whenever I consider the Romans, I realize that, although we tend to think of ourselves as living in a Judeo-Christian culture, we really live in a Roman culture with a little Judeo-Christian icing on top.
Having been to Pompeii, I would say that, judging from the photos, Ostia Antica is the far-superior Roman site. A passer-by was kind enough to take this snap of himself at an old fast-food counter (Pompeii was full of those too):
Academia seems torn between utter decadence and Spanish Inquisition-like puritanism. Peter Wood discusses Higher Sex Ed:
Educate about “sexual harassment and sexual violence” on one hand, and promote sexual license and vulgarity on the other hand? This may not be a complete contradiction, but it is pretty close to one. License and restraint are awkward partners. Campus culture currently decrees that we should want both: It decrees that we should strive to liberate students from conventional morality in favor of free-wheeling sexual expression, while at same time we should instill an ethic of male restraint hedged by severe penalties.
Containing one's sexual and romantic impulses is one of the more difficult things that adult humans are called upon to do in civilized life. Academia reflects that human challenge in warning guys never to touch a girl on their way to their exciting Porn and Perversion Studies class.
Dalio is predicting that heavily indebted countries, including the US, will have to print money to deal with their debts, leading to a collapse in their currency and bond markets, and that late 2012 and 2013 will be another very difficult period. So be warned.
"Another difficult period"? What about now? He is usually right about things, it would seem. He is telling us that he is betting on that.
Trying to organize my personal photo philes, and finding fun trip pics. Riche in life but not in money, unlike the Duc de Berry who got to live off his peasants... Screw the money. Carpe diem. That's the modern way. Put it on a credit card. Obama will pay it.
My family skis. My kids are wonderful skiers, but I just alternate between reckless and timid, and have accumulated a couple of permanent ski injuries. Glad to have them, in a way, though. It's worth it for the cheap expensive thrills.
In 1994, in southeastern Turkey, a Kurdish shepherd discovered the remains of one of the most astonishing archeological finds of our times. Göbekli Tepe
19-foot columns expertly carved out of stone, decorated with sculpted animals that do not and may never have lived in the region have baffled the German archeological team who came to unearth this spectacular find. The scientists estimate that the structures at this site are between 11,000 and 12,000 years old.
This would be 8,000 years before Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids were built!
These folks want white people exterminated (h/t Moonbattery.) That's downright mean - and not multi-cultural at all.
Given the hardships and injustices of their slave ancestors, American descendants of Africans should thank their lucky stars that they ended up being born in America instead of the violent, corrupt, crappy AIDS-ridden place that most of Africa is today. Heck, I am grateful that my ancestors were driven away from England by government edicts, and England isn't all that bad even though it's getting worse and worse.
The following excerpts will give you a taste of the book:
Coffee: "For the most part, white people love Starbucks, although they will profess to hate how the chain is now a multi international corporation."
Organic food: "Because of the balance of global wealth and power, there is a general assumption that white people are pretty shrewd. And for the most part, history has proven this to be true. But white people have one great weakness: organic food."
Having black friends: "...an abundance of black friends (defined in white culture as two) also enables a white person to be the resident expert on African-American issues when there are no black people around."
Multilingual child: All white people their children to speak another language. There are no exceptions."
Dinner Parties: Outside of dictatorships and a few murder trials, there might not be a more rigorous judgement process in the modern world."
I love that the bio on the back cover includes the fact that he is a Ph.D dropout.
If you were born pinkish and peruse that book, you will realize how much of your life is a cultural cliche. Ouch. (Sorry - forgot how to write an accent aigue)
And if such racist white-haters have one drop of "diversity" in their hearts, they might benefit from Brookhiser's classic The Way of the Wasp. We WASPs need understanding, tolerance, and acceptance just like everybody else. We're a minority, ya know. Or almost one. Most of my ancestors were serfs, but serfdom and service to the State and the Lords is not my cup of meat.
Honestly, I am so sick of race. It is just plain stupid. I am part American Indian. Nobody cares about race anymore except the race-mongers and the race-hustlers and college admissions offices. It's pathetic.
Anyway, between those two cultural treatises I linked, those angry black people would discover that white folks lead lives of cliche at least as much as they do themselves. Sheesh. I thought racial hatred and anger were out of fashion in the Obama era.
Last year, at the invitation of Family Security Matters, I penned a reflection on 9/11 that focused on my experience with the first 10-years of my son’s life, 9/11 With My Son. This year I told the editor I had nothing to add. However, I do, but rather from others.
My son Jason, now 11, has the habit of taking a subject that interests him and applying himself to becoming the world’s greatest expert. He did that with the Titanic, and then the Harry Potter series, and now with 9/11. The underlying theme seems to be the magnitude of the events and their impacts. The sinking of the Titanic belied the security of technology in the face of a natural iceberg. The unfolding of Harry Potter’s adventures belied the safe childhood we parents struggle to create as children face supernatural evil. 9/11 combines these elements. 9/11 belies the security that we thought insulated America from the bloodthirsty hatred rising to pure evil that we thought only happened remotely in a disconnected elsewhere.
Several prominent blogs have featured links to an essay in the New York Times by Edward Rothstein, Amid the Memorials, Ambiguity and Ambivalence. Instead of our media and the cultural elites it celebrates being confused or even searching for American guilt, Rothstein suggests, “a Sept. 11 commemoration might well be a celebration of democratic culture’s enduring presence.” John Podhoretz at Commentary’s Contentions blog calls Rothstein’s essay, “The most important essay you’re likely to read this week,” for its critique of “the conversion of 9/11 from an act of wanton destruction and murder to a moment requiring an examination of our own sins.”
Roger Kimball, editor of the New Criterion, celebrates its 30th anniversary by offering an essay that delves deeper that Rothstein’s restricted newspaper word count. In this, Roger Kimball’s New Criterion exhibits its unique value. As Roger Kimball writes in his introductionto the 30th Anniversary Issue,
We have endeavored to provide a home for vigorously written cultural criticism while also building an institution of critical dissent. The two go together. At a time when culture and intellectual life are everywhere beholden to the imperatives of political correctness, even insisting on clear prose seems a daring provocation….Similarly, simply telling the truth about a whole host of controversial subjects is regarded as a challenge to the reigning pieties of established opinion.
Michael Lewis leads off the New Criterion September issue with America resumed: 9/11 remembered, The first entry in its series "Future tense: the lessons of culture in an age of upheaval." Lewis explores the whys behind the cultural confusion that Rothstein highlights. One must, must, read it all, for its exploration of how America’s arts have failed to capture the transformative lessons of 9/11. Some excerpts:
[T]he most vital cultural legacy of any war—or any great national trauma, for that matter—is intangible. It is the comprehensive way it changes our shared attitudes and assumptions, our collective sensibility. Changes in the collective sensibility, being invisible, usually do not reveal themselves until they are expressed in action…. Questions of art and culture seldom are directly involved in a national trauma; they belong to the shadow realm in which great events are digested and replayed after the fact, much as a dream imaginatively rehearses the happenings of the day….
Admittedly, the September 11 Memorial helps give focus and voice to the nation’s sorrow. But sorrow is only one tone in the spacious emotional register of a nation, and there are others, such as resolution, defiance, and even fury, that at certain times might be more appropriate. A person who could grieve but not snarl or even bite would be a strangely limited creature, and the same is true of a nation. Yet, after September 11, the public was given copious outlets only for its sorrow and none at all for its fury. (One must make the necessary exception for country and western music.).
When it came to addressing the harder and more fiery sentiments of the public, the cultural apparatus acted as bridle rather than spur, and rather nervously at that. Anything that might serve to focus national rage, such as showing films of the burning towers and plunging victims, was swept from the airwaves after a few days, only to be shown in short, carefully edited passages during the occasional anniversary broadcast or documentary. This was rationalized as a measure to spare bereft family members further grief, but it is much more the sense that such imagery was deemed incendiary, and likely to stoke the flames of public wrath, as if the most urgent danger—and the only danger—facing America was the prospect of mass mob violence against American Muslims….
The buildings and institutions that were targeted on that day were chosen as symbols of American national identity; those who were murdered were not collateral casualties but were killed in their capacity as Americans. The entire framework of the attack was a deliberate and focused assault on those objects that stood for the American government and American capitalism… But if the context of the event was explicitly American, this was precisely the terrain on which the arbiters of American culture—at least a substantial faction—felt themselves uneasy. Feelings of national solidarity, the sense of personal participation in the fate of one’s nation-state, have so long been disparaged as jingoism that even those artists who felt unaccountable patriotic stirrings found themselves utterly unable to make artistic use of them.
When one comes eyeball to eyeball with a shocking and malignant truth, but is unable to speak frankly and openly about it because of a taboo, one must resort to distortion, evasion, and self-deception….
Yet another lesson of culture after September 11 is that one must not fret or mope. This is hardly the first time that a sizable branch of the cultural establishment has failed to draw the appropriate lessons from new events. Yesterday’s radicals become today’s purveyors of the conventional wisdom and tomorrow’s sclerotic academicians….
Those revelations, administered in the most brutal manner conceivable, have reshaped the collective consciousness of the nation. But they have done so with very little help from art, which through the ages has been the most effective instrument for focusing the cultural consciousness, for framing its questions and concerns in the lucid terms without which no national conversation is possible…. But it is also because of a taboo, imposed gradually and imperceptibly over the past few decades, about expressing strong emotions in national terms—other than that of grief. This offers more concern, for a culture that cannot express, and make sense out of, the longings and passions of the people that sustains that culture cannot remain vital….
Last year, my son Jason offered this comment on what he’s learned from 9/11: “I’m glad the US has people who will fight so another 9/11 or worse doesn’t happen again.” This year, Jason adds: “There are heroes who help others escape. There are greater heroes who rise up regardless of dangers, as the police and firefighters did in the Towers.” Jason adds, "Screw al-Quaida." My son watches and listens to all the cultural detritus on TV and radio. Despite the best worst efforts of the profiting cretins he is exposed to, my son Jason’s quest to understand the facts of disasters and the best of people has independently led him to the conclusions that Rothstein and Lewis bemoan our cultural elites avoiding.
As long as there are Americans growing up like my son, and those like Rothstein, Kimball and Lewis helping to straighten out the confusions of their parents, our fears may be overblown and our hopes encouraged.
It's a subject that has been on my mind for quite a while - the phenomenon of perpetual psychological adolescence in us decadent and pampered Americans - so I will look forward to seeing what she has to say about it.
I hope she will mention that the post-war worship of youth, which culminated in the late 60s and 70s, provided social permission, if not incentive, for adults to continue behaving like kids. Even college, once the domain of the serious, has become an extension of high-school. Given the human temptation for regression, and the joys of youth when compared with the rigors, duties, sacrifices, and responsibilities of adulthood, it's no wonder that people welcome the socio-cultural invitation. Every psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in America, and probably in Europe, is well-aware of this. And so are our politicians, who feed into it - and feed on it: Take care of me, Mommy and Daddy Government.
Photo: These mill workers in Georgia around the turn of the century were probably more mature than some of the 40 year-olds I see these days. Yes, I am in favor of children working. All of mine did. I did, too - and it was not "fun." However, I had time to work on my tennis too.
Some Maggie's Farm readers have the feeling that Federal government in the US has been a gigantic sponge of money and power for over 100 years, to the point that we view Washington, DC almost like an imperial city (albeit with the consent of the governed), with an arrogant subculture which is oblivious to the views of huge regions of the country.
People nowadays clearly look to the Feds to meet their wants and to supply their needs far more than to their states or localities. However, the further governance is from the people they serve, the less responsive it is to the views of states and localities. Thus, for example, people in South Carolina feel somewhat disenfranchised when the Feds attempt to interfere with their Right To Work local opinions.
In the process, the Federal government has nurtured and fertilized gigantic constituencies with financial and/or power stakes in every detail of everything it undertakes. This is quite convenient for the constituencies - one-stop shopping instead of bothering with all of those messy states with their knuckle-dragging realtor and liquor store-owner legislatures and their back-woods governors.
Power and authority, unlike money and wealth, is a zero-sum game. Any authority or power which accrues centrally is lost by the individual, the localities, and the states (see Obamacare).
So, to get to today's poll question, if you were King For A Day, which Federal departments and agencies would you abolish to return the responsibilities, powers, monies,and choices to the individual, the localities, or to the states?
I'll start it off: The US Department of Education (what the heck does the federal government have to do with education, which is/was a local matter? We remember why - Jimmy Carter promised to create it to get the support of the teachers' union. Has American education improved since then? I'd say it has gotten worse as the power has moved from the PTA and local school boards, to Washington.)
My second candidate: Fannie Mae (this quasi-governmental, highly political agency threw a giant wrench into the gears of the world economy. Many predicted what would happen, but nobody cared.)
Psychoanalytic theorists have been struggling with trauma theory since Freud first abandoned it when he realized that fantasy can have as large an impact on a person as can real things. He more or less discovered the realm of what we shrinks call "psychic reality."
My take on it all is that dramatic events of all sorts affect people, but that the impact depends on their pre-existing character structure. One person's horror can be another person's excitement.
I have never been able to understand most of that "self-psychology" stuff he talks about, but I do know that everybody is born defective in some ways, and that emotionally-traumatic events or circumstances, generally unavoidable if you live long enough, change people in all sorts of ways. Sometimes they are opportunities for growth and maturation, sometimes they are simply destructive. Often, the destruction leaves a permanent scar, if not an open wound.
Perhaps the 21st century will "belong to China and India", as many suggest. But the US has been written off many times before. The global industries that have done well in the past decade - particularly those in the digital economy - seem to reward risk-takers, iconoclasts and creative thinkers. For better or worse, the US is better known for those qualities than the likes of China or Germany.
However, CAP alone receives $25 million per annum, so in just two years it is in receipt of far more money than all of the “Islamophobic” groups it collectively names and condemns have made in a decade. As a 501 (3)(c) organization, CAP’s existence seems to be entirely connected to attempting to swing elections in the Democrat Party’s favor, which would appear to be a contravention of IRS guidelines.
The “originality” of claiming there is lucrative money to be made from confronting Islamism is already a stale cliché.
Being a lifelong critic of Islam, red flags popped up in my head at his purported cozy relationship with Islam and prompted me to look very closely at the governor’s record on this particular issue and at this specific time….Unless someone can come up with solid evidence to the contrary, I feel relieved that Governor Perry is not an Islamophile, he is not even an Islamic apologist, and he can be entrusted with the responsibility of guarding our nation’s priceless heritage of liberty against the assaults of Islamic fascism.
Liberal elites like Keller are haunted by the specter of right-wing theocracy. When they see Christian conservatives on the campaign trail, they envision inquisitions and witch hunts and the suppression of liberty. They dread the prospect of a president respecting any "authority higher than the Constitution," and regard ardent religious faith as the equivalent of belief in space aliens.
“We can be saved only by fighting,” Hitler told leaders of the armed forces in February of 1933. Normal rules of diplomacy saw as their ultimate aim the avoidance of conflict and the settlement of international disputes by negotiation. Hitler did not play by these rules, though he repeatedly tried to publicly reassure people that he intended to do so. It took other European statesmen a very long time to realize this. Their misjudgments form the heart of this important book.
…The best chance of success was now, before Germany’s enemies were fully prepared. And so began the greatest war in history, a war that was to last until 1945, a war in which more than 50 million people would lose their lives, a war that would end in the destruction of Germany and the collapse of the European overseas empires…
In the latest upset, four federal agencies known as the Interagency Working Group (IWG) have delivered a plan to drastically censor food advertisers with products deemed to be “too high” in sodium, sugar, or fat that cater to any viewing audience between the ages of two and 11….It’s not just Twinkies and cookies that will be affected, either. Anything deemed to have a little too much sodium or fat will be tested under the new rules, including foods whose very production requires a high sodium content (like pickles) and those that are naturally high fat (like peanuts). As Katz wrote, “Nutritional staples such as Cheerios, peanut butter, and yogurt are verboten under the proposed standards, which effectively constitute a government-regulated grocery list.”
Unions Try To Dis-invent Success for Poor Minority Students:
Only 11% of likely voters think government should invent income for the poor
President Obama doubles-down on inventing prosperity through Big Government-Big Business collusion
What have we learned about inventing prosperity in 2066 years?
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) “The budget must be balanced, the Treasury must be refilled, public debt must be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom must be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands must be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” – Cicero, 55 B.C.
While Bastiat agrees that repairing broken windows is a good thing, encouraging the glazier's trade and income, he argues that it is quite different from the idea that breaking windows is a good thing, in that it would cause money to circulate and encourage industry in general. Why? Because a shopkeeper who spends money to fix broken windows cannot spend or invest that money on new ventures.
I took a few photos at the farm in the Berkshires. Last year, a nor'easter took out our foot bridge over the stream. This week, the storm destroyed the big tractor bridge, steel I-beams, cement posts, and all. This is not good at all.
We saw this big male Eastern Box Turtle in the woods on the edge of the field, near the beaver marsh. My favorite reptile except for maybe the Black Snake, even though this was a cranky old guy:
We don't post much about interior decorating here, but we do post about things we learn about.
Lean cuts of beef, like top round and flank steak (London Broil), are not worth grilling, and should not be grilled, without marinating them overnight first. Cooks say 10 hours at bare minimum. Otherwise, these dense, wood-like cuts are like chewing gum when grilled rare, and like leather when overcooked. 
Academia seems torn between utter decadence and Spanish Inquisition-like puritanism. Peter Wood discusses 
Ray Dalio, the quiet, reclusive, distinctly unflashy, and jazz- and opera-loving founder of 
Those folks who want to exterminate my pale, mottled, and unwholesome skin tone need to learn more about us, and try to understand us better. Empathy, understanding, all that good stuff. Here's a start: 
It's a subject that has been on my mind for quite a while - the phenomenon of perpetual psychological adolescence in us decadent and pampered Americans - so I will look forward to seeing what she has to say about it.
