Incomplete Information

I notice more and more the casualties of the side of contemporary life Bill McKibben describes in The Age of Missing Information. The world around us isn't just coming to us in smaller and smaller fragments. It's that even when an accurate portrayal of the matter at hand is readily available, it just isn't absorbed. In particular, if you read comments to blog posts linked to particular article, the level of comprehension of the article itself is often just........missing. The commenter either doesn't read the linked material at all, or else does a defective skim of it.....and then feels possessed of an opinion well-formed enough that they can write and post it. The end product might as well be gabble.

And, if I am not mistaken, this is occurring with increasing frequency.....

Why, You Ask?

Well, my reason for a post entitled "Merry Christmas," and nothing more, is because I'm not going to say "Season's Greetings," "Happy Holidays," or any of the rest of that careful-not-to-offend crap....which, unfortunately, it's all become. True, the generic wishes have been around for a long time, and for most of that time have been innocuous. However, like many other things in our Age of Apology, they're supposed to prevail when communicated to anyone else.

Baloney. It's Christmas......or it's nothing. Certainly nothing I care to be associated with.

Merry Christmas!

NM.......

A Pox on Them...and you know who I mean

Now that we have some expectation of justice (notice I didn't say we were going to get it) in the arrest and charge of Gov. Blagojevich of Illinois for various malfeasances, it's time to give other politicians equal time to demonstrate in just how much contempt they hold our system of government.

Today's example: Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan Seeks Governor's Ouster

This is an abominable precedent, period. Madigan has demonstrated -not for the first time- her unfitness for public office. She seeks to maneuver the Illinois Constitution by her own clever definition of the charges against the Boy Blunder Blagojevich as "equivalent to a medical condition." Once this breathtaking redefinition is accepted, it then becomes trivial to accept (according to a never-employed clause in the Illinois Constitution) the removal of gubernatorial powers by the Illinois Supreme Court, making Blagojevich merely the inhabitant of a governor's mansion he has never physically occupied for the 6 years he's been in office.
Apart from Madigan's rather transparent move to spare the Legislature (aka her father) an impeachment trial, it merely exacerbates one of the truly dangerous trends in our government, where more and more important decisions are channeled into an unarguable decision by the Judiciary of either the Federal or a state government. Thus, the elected officials can avoid controversy, and a vote that will go against them in the next election.
An opinion held by many pundits seems to be that the Attorney General's request has no chance at all of even being considered by the Illinois Supreme Court. We can only pray that this is true, just as we may hope that Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald continues to successfully charge the gang of corrupt politicians who every day screw on their pants (or skirts) and feed off the commonwealth.

I believe it was Karl Marx who said that "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." When it comes to politicians in this state, we're way beyond farce. This is yet another of a series of symptoms of our disease; I begin to think our Republic won't survive it.

A Glimmer of Hope?

Looks like Rod Blagojevich, corrupt Governor of Illinois (I know, how can you possibly tell which one, without a scorecard?), finally had the hammer dropped on him by Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What will come of this? Unless all the present publicity and uproar makes it impossible, I frankly wouldn't be surprised if all the indictments just faded away after January 20th.

Fitzgerald may have moved now because he'd already been told that he was history in 2009......

I'll pour a pint....

Today is the 75th Anniversary of Repeal Day. The title says is all; if you need to know more about the 21st Amendment.......

It could also be broadened into Get Government Out Of Our Face Day.

"It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes."

- Florence King

Thanks, I Needed That

Since I'm constantly pounded by the disingenuous crap that pours in a nauseous river from most media outlets, it's nice to read something like this, from The Roller of Big Cigars. It would be nice if I had something about this long (i.e., nice and short) to read, say, once a week:

Shocked, I say

I am completely and utterly shocked that a government would value the rights of a multi-million dollar corporation over the rights of it’s broke, apathetic citizens. Shocked how a company that can afford lobbyists and campaign contributions could be have such sway over the people it helped elect. How fucking bizarre! I mean who knew that politicians could be corrupted? Who knew that companies wanted to use government to help them make more money? How could anybody guess that greedy people would be ruthless in getting what they wanted? This all sounds like something from science-fiction doesn’t it? The next thing you know guys will start liking porn and geeks will start watching Star Trek.

A Bit Further.....

A headline from The Onion? Oh, I wish:

Cystic Fibrosis Too White for Ottawa Fundraiser

Yep, it's real. Best comments I've read so far:

1. "That'll mean they won't do any fundraisers for sickle cell now."

2. "Unified thought leads to stupidity like this. That's a problem. People who have a vested financial interest in unified thought are a bigger problem. They take advantage of it.
The problem isn't liberalism or conservatism. The problem is that an idea (in this case, political correctness) is accepted by a group of people, without question or critical thought, and over time becomes distorted into something so radical that nobody outside that group could possibly be deluded enough to support it."

This is confined to some subpar Canadian university (Carleton), you say?

From the National Post of Toronto:

Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., has hired six students whose jobs as "dialogue facilitators" will involve intervening in conversations among students in dining halls and common rooms to encourage discussion of such social justice issues as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability and social class.

"Yes, there's nothing today's coeds look forward to more than the creepy 46-year-old Divinity student who is paid to chat them up about white privilege!"

All New, All The Time

Some cable channel (which, I am not sure, and don't wish to be) gushing this morning over the nominee for Attorney General, naturally the emphasis being on the "first ever {insert minority here} in the cabinet." I guess Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as Secretaries of State don't count. And to these people, I think they don't.

Wordy

The online comic xkcd.com, which rocks -some of the time- has a great one here:

"A Bunch of Rocks"

I found the strip verbose, however. Richard Brautigan, a deservedly third-rate writer*, summed up this particular suspension of the laws of space-time better, in perhaps the best line he managed:

"You should have ridden with Jesse James, for all the time you stole from me."

Yeah, we stole your time. And we used ours to give something back....if you were listening.

*No. No. He's a third-rate writer. Lots of writers are, just keep repeating that until you believe it.

"But maaaan, he wrote Trout Fishing in America, maaaan, it's such a cool title maaaan."

....and did you ever read it? Even in Cliff's Notes? Do you think the criterion for awarding Nobel Prizes in literature should be scribbling anarchic crap attacking Western Civilization? Oh, wait.......

A Sigh of Relief

The CNN news streamer this morning featured the following sentences, in sequence:

"Elderly men in Mexico to receive free Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra."

and

"Mexican government states 'Everyone has the right to be happy.'"

Sidestepping the obvious, that the Mexican government statement is mistaken, even with the worst translation in the world (although I suppose they can't say "Everyone has the right to an erection," when half the populace is left out), I found reading this strangely liberating.

I finally decided I felt more at peace with my own country after that, having just survived the brutal, frantic idiocy that was the presidential campaign by sedulously ignoring it as much as possible. It's just good to be reminded that any other government can be just as removed from reality, and as disposed to make policy that completely misallocates resources.

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."

- Friederich Nietzsche

Keeping Pace With Morons

A fragment of paraphrased conversation on Fox News Channel between Bill Kristol and Steve Doocy:

Kristol: "If the stock market rises again and the economy comes back by 2011 or 1012, the Obama administration could be sitting pretty."

Doocy: "You mean I have to wait until then for the recession to be over?"

I will give Doocy something of the benefit of the doubt, given the "Chief Fox News On-Air Dipshit" schtick he plays, but there are hordes of my fellow citizens who would say this, and in dead earnest......

Should Have Seen This Coming

We already have a Foaming Free Speech brouhaha in MS, brought about by administrators deciding all discussion of the president-elect should be banned from the classrom or the halls.

I don't claim for a moment that the administrative ban on discussing this person (or any person) isn't stupid and abysmally ill-advised. All it's likely to do is have exactly opposite the desired effect, while whipping up emotion on every side. From three decades of experience, best that it be left up to the individual classroom teacher to control. The method? Let the kids talk it out. Given the attention spans and stamina for any topic of high schoolers.....about 20 minutes. But, after all, we are talking about school administrators, so this whole tempest in a teapot may (literally) become a federal case.

That Didn't Take Long

And so it begins. Daniel Schorr concludes that since President-Elect Obama is black, he must make Darfur a priority, a syllogism without parallel. The laundry list of things Obama's supposed to do for Illinois is growing, too. I suppose this putative largesse stems from the fact that he's a senator from Illinois.....but I don't think the reasons matter. Rumor has the New York Times is already pleading that folks need to go easy on the new president. This should be a full-blown farce by this time next year.

Post-Election Post

Couldn't think of anything particularly trenchant to say about the national election; as far as I could tell, the results pretty much reflected the polls. Therefore, I'll just link an earlier post of mine that has become more poignant in the months leading up to the election of Obama.

On a more encouraging note, most of the things I was really concerned about in this election went OK. The Illinois Constitutional Convention referendum went down in flames, and the Champaign County sales tax increase was narrowly defeated. Unfortunately, our township referenda to ban industrial development were approved by fairly narrow margins, but the good news is that they're advisory only.

Assault on Precinct #1

I wouldn't be posting again today if it hadn't been for the extraordinary turnout at our polling place.....and at just 0605, barely time to open the doors. To set the stage, this is a small precinct in a rural township in a small, mostly rural county in downstate Illinois. The total numbers of registered voters I estimate at 5-600, no higher. In the 20 years we've voted there, I've never been at the polls with more than 3 or 4 other voters in attendance, and most of the time I vote at about the same hour- just after opening. Today there were 25-30 people ahead of us, took us about 15 minutes to get a ballot, and by that time the line snaked out of the building and down the sidewalk. Remarkable, considering the only critters likely to swell the ranks of voters in this area might be rabbits or whitetail deer.

Significance? Probably none.....

Election Day '08

Not much to say, since everything that's really important about today lies in a ritual that has been performed one hundred ten times since the inception of the Republic. In thinking about what might be most apt to say about this particular election, a quote comes to mind:

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

--Spock in 'Amok Time', Star Trek TOS

A Sentiment for Election Eve

Since I already have something in mind to post tomorrow, today I thought it would be appropriate to juxtapose a comment to the frantic exhortations of the last days prior to the election. "There is no party that is suited to govern except- US." "There are all the incipient disasters you can think of in voting for anybody except- US." "Grass will grow in the streets of thousands of cities and towns in the United States* unless you vote for- US." And so forth.

The truth, for my money:

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

-Lord Acton, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1881

The Constitution of the United States was designed -and by very intelligent men- to accomplish several goals, among them that of denying to any party, group, sect or interest the ability to seize power in this country. So far, it works......so what's the concern? Why not just stay home?

Perhaps it lies simply in the decision to vote, to assume that particular responsibility. Self-government means just that. It means to take responsibility for one's own affairs, to do one's own business.

Perhaps it lies in the fact that constitutions are not the last word. Ultimately, people have the last word. No one destroyed the Roman Empire. As far as anyone can tell, basically people just got tired of it and.....walked away. In our own time, perhaps the most trenchant comment on this view was made by Judge Learned Hand:

“I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there no constitution, no law, no court can save it.”

*Warning of what would happen if FDR was elected in 1932.

Do You Like What I Like?

Here's the article of the day, in the Daily Illini, student newspaper at our nearby Illinois (...it used to be The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, but is now being marketed as simply "Illinois," and....don't ask.)

Here's a Brave New World quote, now:

"I like the First Amendment," said Will Green, graduate student and member of the Graduate Employee's Organization. "And our University doesn't respect that."

And why should it be incumbent on anyone to "like" what you "like," Will? Answer: it shouldn't. Our rights proceed from basic principles antecedent to government, so that government is subsidiary to them, not that government is obliged to "like" or "respect" them. It's perfectly obvious that Will has never moved beyond an elementary school playground level of analysis. No government respects your rights, Will, it can only fear what will happen if it transgresses, and in the meantime, will attempt to get away with whatever it can.

I don't respect you OR your ideas, Will. How do you like that?

Expectations

A blog I subscribe to is Peeve Farm. The guy isn't ever going to write the Great American Novel, but has some interesting things to say, and is pretty much on balance......which is saying a lot on the Internet these days. The other day, I read his comment on what happens after January 20th, and it's pretty much what my wife and I have remarked several times:

"Just remember: when Obama is president, everyone will have jobs, the stock market will rise for four straight years, and there won't be any more hurricanes.... Usually a candidate only has to worry about people holding him to account for his own empty campaign promises. This time, the whole world is signing checks no mortal man's presidency can cash."

Great expectations doesn't begin to describe it.

The Mortgage Debacle Summarized

After reading a few torturous explanations of "what really happened" with the collapse of the housing market and its extended debacle, I confess my attention wandered. Today I ran across this column by the author Orson Scott Card that puts it quite succinctly, and makes everything I've read and viewed fall into place: Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

res ipse loquitur, indeed.

From the Heart

I haven't posted much on the travesty that has been the presidential campaign. This has been on purpose, added to the fact that I have watched and read as little as possible. What I have seen has convinced me that I no longer have the stomach to make a cognitive statement about what's going on. Maybe next time....but meanwhile, how about a heartfelt wish:

"A plague a' both your houses!"

- Mercutio, Romeo & Juliet Act 3, Scene 1, 90-92

OK, Listen Up!

I've read and listened to one too many pieces about people who refuse to have their children vaccinated because they might get autism. So, if you happen to read this, ONE MORE TIME:

[rant on]

The idea that vaccines, or the preservatives in vaccines, cause autism, or ringworm, or fallen arches, is completely UNPROVEN. Studies done in both the U.S. and Europe have failed to find any significant correlation between vaccination and autism. The hysteria engendered in a world of missing information is just a harbinger of the coming Dark Age. We have become Super Barbarians, who channel surf with the latest technology, the world passes by our faces in a blur, of information about anything there is only a smattering, information incomplete, understanding illusory, enlightenment increasingly in the shadows.

The view that the only risk is measles (as my most recent piece argues) conveniently leaves out all those things that may be prevented by vaccines: diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), etc. And how about polio? Willing to give that a pass? Can you REALLY do that and look in the mirror and call yourself a fit parent?

[rant off]

He lit a match*

I normally don't just link to a comic, even though I enjoy xkcd, but I'll make an exception. this one takes me back to covering the miles of two-lane highway (back when I was little, and most highways were), and finding the Burma-Shave signs a welcome blip in the miles of corn fields. On the other hand, when you're a kid, those miles of corn fields may be your first chance to experience introspection- a pastime of great difficulty in contemporary culture.

*Can you complete it? (Scroll down to the 1959 jingles....)

Worth A Word....

The best comment I've heard on TV for quite a while cam yesterday, courtesy of the new, improved Don Imus show on RFD-TV, by Fox News' economy guy, Charles Payne:

["One of the reasons this market can't bounce back isn't just because of people's opinion of Bush, but because neither of these candidates inspires any confidence that they'll be able to help."]

{I put it in quotes and brackets to denote that it is a paraphrase, because I can't copy things word for word that fast off the toob.}

I am right there with him. Some part of me wishes I wasn't.....but there it is.

The Ivied Inquisitors Strike Again....

I'm not going to delve into the latest witch-hunting indulged in by our supposedly enlightened universities, Nat Hentoff did it better. Who rides to the rescue (besides Hentoff and a few other organizations who are completely principled in their defense of the First Amendment) will be the most interesting outcome of The Case of the Professor Who Cried Wetback. At this point, I wouldn't take 10-1 odds on the ACLU....

While I'm certain that Nat & I could find a great multitude of things to disagree on, he is that rare individual who is able to separate his politics from his principles.

There it is.....

I don't make a practice of posting other people's rants, but I'll make an exception in this case.....and it's a comment to a blog*, of all things! There is so much that's marvelous in this comment about the fragmentation of what we have always taken for granted when we say "education," as well as what passes for culture (we now have to modify it and call it "popular culture"). Then there are the more specific things, such as the withering away of a literate readership with a capacity to sense any subtlety in what is written......just read it.

By Yancy Berns on September 23, 2008 7:34 PM
I'm just afraid that we've transformed this culture, collapsed it down to a xylophone shape, and nobody has the time, the inclination, the temperament, even the desire to see what lives within those folds.
Let's wipe away ALL the invisible quotation marks (god, to be part of the 'irony' generation, and to have no taste for the stuff, such have been my days) and state something obvious: your TV critic did not recognize the line from HAMLET, and it doesn't matter, because 10,000 of his readers won't either, and will think its funny that the critic makes a goofy of those "elitist" words... the fact that it is indeed from the greatest written work of western culture (500 years and still at the top of the pops!) would not sway them if they knew. Because they believe that they are righteous, these Invaders, these "new people" who have no time for details, no interest in ambiguity, and can only afford to take everything at face value as they hurtle down their highways. All things pander to this new uni-mind, and I say again, they brim with what must be righteousness.
I could say this to a 25 year old. I could say, "You know 'Hamlet', that play that they shoved down your throat in 10th grade? It's actually a riveting piece of writing that you will see yourself in, throughout, feel your living in, perhaps more than in any other written thing you would be able to find."
They would say, "How could someone who lived that long ago possibly write something that relates to my life?"
And I could say, "Some things never change."
And they would say, "But i live in the modern era. 2008 isn't about moping and worrying! It's about being positive! One love!"
And I would say, "There can be much positive in a dour work of art. Much you can learn about empathy and soul."
And they would say, "I've got enough drama in my own life. Have you seen those gas prices? I don't need this Hamlet business."
And at that point I would walk away defeated, because I realize this is probably the same person who can't relate to 'Under The Boardwalk' by The Drifters either, because it's 40 years old - and what could someone in the early 60's possibly know about living such a fantastic life in such a fantastic age as we do?
And I might mutter, "Forty years don't mean much in terms of human evolution. Maybe you also won't read a fortune cookie if it comes to the table too long after the check, because what could someone in the back of the restaurant five minutes ago possibly know about you, your life, your troubles, your fabulous friends, in this amazing NOW?"
Now, I might agree about the cookie in general, but if there's one disease that has this culture in its grasp, it's utter, yawning apathy... and not just apathy about the big game or the big election, but about the human condition. This may be a failing of the school system, or just a failing of our attention spans, but nobody took my generation by the hand and led them to Kurosawa or Pete Seeger... and good, because what could Kurosawa or Pete Seeger or Edith Wharton possibly know about what it's like to be a human being in this so fabulous, super-speedy 2008?
We've finally reached the future! "This is our time!", the dispassionate shout, "and we choose not to notice all the interesting ways humans can be different than each other, in conversation, in art, none of that! 'Satire'? Oh, I'm so sick of satire! Every time I don't like a movie and someone tells me I didn't get it because it was satire, I just want to slap him in his smug face!"
And so back to that list of useless dead people, who have no possible idea about the amazing human adventure of 2008,and could offer no possible comfort from beyond the grave. Everything is miniature, and everything is fast, and if death carried you away before this wonderful age of all-inclusive cultural ignorance (why actually learn about it when they can just install Wikipedia into my phone?), they you lose, sucker!
And they fall away: Buster Keaton, S.J. Perelman, Kafka, Christ... what could those knuckle-draggers ever know about faster and faster, smaller and smaller? What, are they gonna help me figure out what do when my friend Tony does that one thing I don't like? Puh-leeeezze!

*For the sake of limiting the size of this post, I'll put in only one other quote from the other blog. For the record, It's Roger Ebert's Journal, entry This is the Dawning of the Age of Credulity. The quote from Hamlet referenced in the entry is cited by Ebert referencing a NYT review by Adam Buckman:

Let me give another example of credulity. The following paragraph appeared this week in a New York Post review by Adam Buckman of the season premiere of "Heroes."

"This show, which was once so thrilling and fun, has become full of itself, its characters spouting crazy nonsense. Here's one I wish someone would translate for me: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends--rough hew them how we will," spouts the enigmatic industrialist Linderman played by Malcolm McDowell, who should win an Emmy for keeping a straight face while reciting these lines."

I am still having a hard time believing that Buckman could not have known that the quote from Hamlet wasn't something he'd read or seen somewhere, and then I alternate with wondering whether or not he was being ironic. And yet, it's easily demonstrated that any sort of classical allusions in literate discourse are pretty much fossilized, receding with the speed of light......so I don't know why Buckman's apparent opacity when it comes to a famous Shakespeare quote should surprise me.

The End of the World, part MCMCDXVII

Heard on that most authoritative of news outlets, Fox News, 9/18/08 (I have to remind myself that they were the first):

"Over three million Americans are still without running water or electrical power. These are essential to civilization."

Coming from two brainiacs like Geraldo Rivera and Steve Doocy, I'm going to have to re-evaluate how it's possible that all those Greeks and Romans ever accomplished what they did. Aliens, probably......the same ones that built all those pyramids.

A New Wave?

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has moved its web page to a blog. I don't know if they're the first, but it could be a trend. ......and how is there not a 1-1 comparison between most op-ed pages and their associated hideous letters to the editor, and an online blog with its trailing comments? OK, the former will probably have fewer typos.

I'm serious- although only in the very narrow sense that blogging is the first break in the aristocracy of opinion since the 15th century. Until blogs, the ability to spread opinion, freedom of the press or not, stems from owning a press in the first place*. Whatever the current shortcomings of blogs, they are the thin end of the wedge.

Of course, even with blogs, the same principle might apply. I, for one, welcome Blogger as my new press overlord.....

{*"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." - A. J. Liebling}

Not September yet, nor is this Munich, but.....

This is the best thing I've read so far concerning the "border mistake" in the Caucasus. Love to watch the Russian Army steamrollering little Georgia, while the EU rationalizes. Neville Chamberlain, you should see us now; "peace in our time".... no doubt about it.

As the great Tom Lehrer sang, in the song of the same name (albeit in a different context), "Who's Next?"

Who's Faking Now?

The Chinese have been accused of "faking" the Olympics. I saw this reported on Fox News this morning by very earnest news-readers, all couched in the context of exploiting two poor little 7-year-old girls.
Leaving to one side the fact that the little girls will be completely unable to even understand why the producers involved performed the lip-sync, I find it one of the most richly ironic issues to make the news this year that the televised media is accusing the Chinese -or anyone- of televised fakery, since ALL televised news deals in fakery 24/7.

Are significant numbers of stories on national news relating to such persons as Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Michael Jackson, et. al., ad infinitum, anything but the most abject fakery?

Is employing grinning fools like Steve Ducey on Fox News, solemnly telling me that stories like the man who taught his pet rabbit to swim in his pool is "news" anything but fakery?

Is the array of meaty, loudmouth suits employed as TV "attack dogs" like Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, Neal Cavuto, and Keith Olbermann anything but distasteful and low-rent fakery?

Are all the pairs of expensively waxed legs dressed in short skirts, displayed daily with crotch pointed at camera, topped by an elegant coiffure and a mouth in between that can barely read a teleprompter anything but fakery?

To paraphrase Oliver Cromwell, You are all useless, go away...... or at least shut up.

A Question of Character

.....which is, we are assured by many moderns, irrelevant and part of the bad and flawed past. Nevertheless, it lies at the root of misunderstanding the actions of such nations as China and Russia. Yes, nations, like the individuals of which they are composed, have a character. That character doesn't change with the label of the decade, or of the century.

China's character is fundamentally ethnocentric; the name of the nation, which may be rendered phonetically "Chung-kuo" means "Middle Kingdom." This doesn't mean halfway, it means it's seen by its people as in the center, just as in the Ancient Middle East, e.g., when Herodotus reported that the Persians considered all other peoples civilized by their strict geographic proximity to Babylon. In the case of China, other nations are barbaric and fundamentally inferior, and fall away in that inferiority strictly by their closeness to the Han (Chinese). Such a philosophy is reinforced by the simplest of expedients. Let's consider the current Olympic Games. Any activity in which the Chinese do not medal is considered irrelevant, unworthy, or simply ignored. Anything in which they do medal is considered irrefutable proof of cultural and racial superiority. All such actions are characteristically Chinese, and are displayed and recorded in their culture for centuries, and have nothing to do with any labels like "Communist," "Democracy," or any of the rest of Western socio-political terminology.

Russia's character is fundamentally paranoid schizophrenic. All other nations are regarded as fundamentally untrustworthy, and having at best negative, and at worst sinister motives toward Russia. All Russian interaction with other nations may be understood in this light. Consider the current invasion of Georgia. Many journalists are currently using terms to describe the Russians lying about a cease-fire while continuing their military operations against Georgia such as "inconsistent." No, they're not being inconsistent. They they are lying to buy time, in a very calculating manner that is perfectly consistent with the way Russians have acted for centuries. Then those nations opposing them will be faced with the fait accompli of the Russians basically occupying and controlling Georgia, and completely unable to field any force of their own to oppose Russia. Thus Russia's policy of paranoid expediency will have been vindicated -again. A Russian would not be resentful if his country were described as having a "cynical foreign policy." He would only display bewilderment...."What other kind would we have?" People only become confused by thinking about any "new, improved, post-Soviet Russia." No: there is only Russia.

End of story.

Another Great Critic Gone....

We only achieve a comprehensive understanding of ourselves when we share the thoughts of those outsiders who in some fashion transcend our perspective on our national condition. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was one such.

Alexis de Tocqueville detailed the endless, incestuous slide of Democracy toward a total preoccupation with egalitarian minutiæ.

.....and here we are.

Alistair Cooke, although he embraced America enough to become a citizen, roundly criticized what he called our "-love of show."

....ditto

Solzhenitsyn is at least as important as the other two, attacking the West's moral decay forty years ago in his 1978 Harvard commencement address:

"It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil."

Not to slight the press:

"Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one's nation's defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: 'everyone is entitled to know everything.' But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information."

It's popular to characterize such critics as just curmudgeons. In Solzhenitsyn's case, nothing could be further from the truth:

"If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era. This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but -- upward."

You tell 'em.

Thanks for the Satire

The New Yorker magazine is renowned for its satirical covers. You can buy volumes archiving the covers going back to 1925. Now, it appears, it's time for another giant Obamaflap, this time over this particular effort.

There may have been controversy in the past over how successful a particular New Yorker cover has been, but never a chorus of voices saying it shouldn't have been published, that somehow this particular subject matter transcends the First Amendment. As we have subscribed to The New Yorker for decades, I don't regard this cover as particularly extraordinary as one of their political efforts.....it's perhaps somewhat broadly drawn for my tastes.

The more interesting question here stems from a comment I heard on a cable channel concerning the ability of the average person to draw the satirical inference from the cover, having viewed it "-on a newsstand." The conclusion was that it would take "-great mental effort" for the average person to think his or her way through to the lampooning the magazine intended. I wonder how many people would view this cover in passing and, their brains melting down from attempting analysis of the subject matter, have gone on to raise a controversy on this level. As I know The New Yorker and its probable readership pretty well, my conclusion: damn few.

The controversy stemmed from a rather blatant objection from the Obama campaign directly to the media. The second step, of course, was for the media to create a controversy where none might have ever come about. I can only infer that the Obama campaign wanted the controversy, their motives in doing this I can hardly imagine. Perhaps public attention to the candidate is flagging. The media, of course, and for the nth time, have proven the perfect no-cost tool in inflating a passing incident to a mouth-foaming issue, this time over the putative martyrdom of Barack & Michelle by The New Yorker.

Whatever anyone thinks, its publication is clearly Freedom of the Press (and I'm not defending The New Yorker....), all the rest being opinions & taste. Nothing here goes beyond New York Times v. Sullivan, which means it is in violation of no civil or criminal law. End of story.

Despotism in the Duchy of Daley

First scratch foie gras, now it's smoking on stage. The Windy City is on a fast slide to despotism. Note that the ban on smoking in Jersey Boys was made following a complaint by one (1) person. And isn't the rule of one person the very definition of despotism? Sure it is.

They're Everywhere......

Time for me to start inspecting my grandchildren more closely as they eat their meals....you can never tell when the rejection of an enchilada or some Szechuan garlic chicken is going to be indicative of a budding racist. Where is old tailgunner Joe McCarthy when we need him? How about the House Un-American Activities Committee? That would be the pre-school subcomittee, of course.

Su Casa es Nuestra Casa

This speaks for itself, not merely about The 545, but, more painfully, about us....as in Walt Kelly's line from Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and they are us."

Profundity in xkcd.com

I get some laughs from -a percentage- of this strip, but there's both comedy and tragedy in this one, my friends. Terrible truth, too.

Send Him to France.....

The French appear to have perfected the "don't shoot the hostages" situation, instead substituting "gun down some innocent bystanders." But at least they're doing it in France, whereas there are things that bother me a whole lot more, and closer to home.

I cite as example the comments by FBI Director Robert Mueller, wherein he criticized the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the individual's right to keep & bear arms, which are chilling, to say the least. I wouldn't know whether to begin with the non-sequiturs in the article, the unsubstantiated claims, or a number of other things, such as how he plans to make his grandchildren's campuses gun-free without the institution of a Campus Security Administration, employing thousands, cost in billions....with yet another bureaucrat in a cheap suit at the helm.
So I'll just leave today's editorial with Shakespeare's abundantly proven assertion "Security is the chief ill of mankind."

Then They Came For Me....

The Chicago Tribune seems to think it would be a good idea if the 2nd Amendment were repealed, in light of the Supreme Court's decision this week upholding the right of individuals to own firearms, and striking down D.C.'s infamous handgun ban. Now Duke Daley of the Principality of the County of Cook in Illinois is huffing about it. Of course, this guy stands for the law, controling as he does what is probably the most overwhelmingly corrupt county in the United States.

If "people" in any of the first 10 Amendments means "us," actual flesh & blood people, and not some abstract legalistic nonsense, then all those Amendments are valid. We have the right to keep & bear arms, speech, religion, press, assembly, petition, freedom from unreasonable search & seizure, all the rest of it. If one goes, "people" goes in all of them, according to the rule of precedent, so goes the Bill of Rights.......and the Chicago Tribune. Some poetic justice there, but I doubt I'll appreciate it.

And The Beat Goes On....

Just too much goodness to pass up out there today. Now we have families investigated for child abuse because a psychic had a vision.

Time to trot out the W.H. Auden; can't get too much of the classics:

“One doesn’t have to be a prophet to predict the consequences...

“Reason will be replaced by Revelation…Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions— feelings in the solar plexus induced by undernourishment, angelic images generated by fever or drugs, dream warnings inspired by the sound of falling water. Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces…

“Idealism will be replaced by Materialism…Diverted from its normal outlet in patriotism and civic or family pride, the need of the masses for some visible Idol to worship will be driven into totally unsociable channels where no education can reach it. Divine honours will be paid to shallow depressions in the earth, domestic pets, ruined windmills, or malignant tumours.

“Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish. Every corner-boy will congratulate himself: ‘I’m such a sinner that God has come down in person to save me.’ Every crook will argue: ‘I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged.’ The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums, and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Tragedy, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”

— Herod, in For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
W. H. Auden, 1940

If it's taught, it must be true....

This is a pretty good followup to my last post, and definitely deserves the 'wish-bringing' label. It seems a few decades ago, certain professors (most notably, one Leonard Jefferies) at several putatively reputable universities began taking Afrocentrism (a theory based on, to put it charitably, the most dubious antecedents) out a whole new door.

Nowadays, it is taught in certain quarters that the roots of all that is profound, and good, and noble in Western Civilization actually rests with persons who were masquerading as Caucasians such as Plato, Aristotle, and Isaac Newton, but were, in reality- black.

This book, by Professor Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley College, gives the details of this particular disease. But you can avoid spending $17 by imagining a world where there are no facts, merely intention, commitment in a certain direction and toward certain goals. The "facts" will then reveal themselves, as in a glass, darkly. These then become the received history of an individual, or group, or perhaps an entire society where conformity to that which never was can bring ease and peace of mind.

We live in a country where some universities shovel the truly great into the great hopper of their political mind-machine. It then remains to deliberately sift out the most obscure and marginal thinkers, who are then lionized as some cultural undiscovered country.

It's not inconceivable that our society could move full circle, from what may have been a lie, but truly one of those rare "good lies" as outlined by Plato in The Republic, to nothing but a set of murky supersitions well suited to a new dark age.

If Only Wishing.....

I have a bad feeling that when the national campaign gets into full swing, we will proceed from generalities and pontifications relating to "change" to this sort of thing:

Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two--
Something noble and wise and good,
Done by merely wishing we could.
We've forgotten, but--never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

- Rudyard Kipling, "The Road Song of the Bandar-Log" from The Jungle Book

Horrifying x 10^23

This morning's Fox News featured a pic of a car hitting cyclists in a bike race in Mexico. According to the news reader, it was "-horrifying, horrifying, horrifying, horrifying." Four. I counted them. Now that we've bankrupted all the extreme adjectives and adverbs in English on a daily or even hourly basis, the only thing to do is repeat them for emphasis.

As to why this is so much more horrifying than other people smashed to jelly by motor vehicles, I imagine it's the usual- "-we got good video."

This reminds me of something......

Evidently the Democratic Party has decided to seat half the delegates from the Florida and Michigan primaries. When the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789, it contained a provision where slaves counted 3/5 for purposes of taxation, and 3/5 for purposes of representation. I knew this reminded me of something.....

This is my Vote

The History Channel has produced a series entitled "Megadisasters."

They should be required by law to change their name to The Hysteria Channel.

It's right up there with all the rampant speculation on the cable (and what the hell, network) news channels on politics, but with special effects that are supposed to convince us that these things are REAL. Woooooooo!

On the Cutting Edge of The New Barbarism

......is the outbreak of Whooping Cough in a private school in California, established in the first quarter of the 20th century by a reformer who believed:

1. Kids achieve health by proper diet alone.

2. Kids needed to contract diseases in order to be healthy.

You go on believing that. I just hope your kids don't die for the sake of validating your beliefs.

All covered by this bit of doggerel, I believe:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:-
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire.

-Kipling

Keep to the Subject....

This morning, I was listening to Garrison Keillor's little 5-minute spot on NPR, The Writer's Almanac. As usual, it was divided into three sections. Not as usual, the middle part had -nothing- to do with writing. I notice that even the Wikipedia entry hedges this by saying it's "usually" about writing. Well, then, how about "The Usually About Writer's Almanac?"

Part 1 was a bio of Charles Simic, a poet I would respect if the only lines he had written were Ax.*

Part 2 commemorated the invention of the birth control pill.

Part 3 was a poem by Donald Justice, one I had never heard, and which didn't convince me that Justice has anything in particular to recommend his poetry.

Wait a minute....what was that second part again? And why......?

*AX

Whoever swings an ax
Knows the body of man
Will again be covered with fur.
The stench of blood and swamp water
Will return to its old resting place.

They’ll spend their winters
Sleeping like bears.
The skin on the throats of their women
Will grow coarse. He who cannot
Grow teeth, will not survive.
He who cannot howl,
Will not find his pack....

These dark prophecies were gathered
Unknown to myself, by my body
Which understands historical probabilities,
Lacking itself, in its essence, a future.

— Charles Simic

.....and so much for birth control pills.

Parliamentary Procedure, ca. 2008

And here we have our civilized, adult display for the day: cue the Detroit City Council. And, no, it's not produced by Comedy Central. To call it disheartening would be to use an emotion that probably became obsolete a quarter century ago.

Following this, however, is a brighter note, reason to hope when several Middle School children deconstruct Ms. Conyers' behavior. Perhaps there is character developed in some people, no matter what obstacles are placed in their way, or how perverse our society becomes......

Stop it Already!

OK, I know it's a dinosaur doing the talking, but......just oblige the T-Rex and quit it, OK? And if you really must be devastated, terrified, or horrified, do it in the rest room, please.

If you want the short version....

Often it is the view of the acute foreigner that says more about us than we can see or say about ourselves. Thus it was with Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th century, and, for my money, Alistair Cooke in the 20th. So far, the best foreign insight on the current election belongs to a Dane, from Thomas Litchford's blog:

“We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.

On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer married to a lawyer, or a lawyer who is married to a bitch who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a very large chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there really a contest here?”

Just a Question of When....

It wasn't and never has been a question of whether the ignorant, greedy, or just plain criminal who participated in the current financial fiasco surrounding the mortgage industry would be bailed out, only when, and, of course, what form the "plan" would take. This may be a a scheme of the Democrats, but if the Republicans had come up with it, it wouldn't have been enough different to matter (I base this opinion on the fact that it was a Republican-dominated Congress that voted millions of the same taxpayer's money to each of the families of the 9/11 victims).

Some would say it will be better in the long run because it will stave off even larger economic losses, that could cost the taxpayers much more than $6 Bn. So then, what's wrong with it? The same thing that's wrong with any bailout. It becomes a precedent, and makes everyone else feel entitled to equal treatment. And, for the life of me, if somebody who gets their house foreclosed on today gets bailed out, I cannot see in all equity how the government can refuse next time, any more than I can see why the families of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing aren't entitled to the same compensation as the millions given to the families of the victims of 9/11. They're all entitled to the same thing, and that could be- nothing.

Learn it. Now.

In my reading of various items on all the "miraculous" solutions for abundant, cheap energy that keep cropping up like little poison mushrooms on the Internet, I am reminded of the classic conspiracy tale of the 100 mpg carburetor for automobiles, which has to be 50 years old.

Every person who wants to talk about energy -even casually- ought to be required to learn this, and pass a thorough exam on it. Actually, anyone interested in the subject can benefit from regular reading of Robert Rapier's blog.

During breaks, they must repeat Heinlein's mantra: TANSTAAFL*

Earthquake! (and I'm Bloggin' it)

Living as we do in the Midwest, this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to blog a reasonably local earthquake. I was awakened about 0440 CDT this morning by the mirror on the back of the bedroom dresser shaking. After I woke up, it shook again. I got up immediately and went downstairs and out in the yard, but felt no more shaking. After making some coffee and turning on TV, reports began to come in around 0515, just the fact itself from TWC, and then more detail from a local station (WCIA-TV in Champaign). They said it was a 5.4 quake that was being reported from Evansville (later stating that damage was being reported in Louisville), and shortly thereafter that the epicenter was about 20 miles from Olney (a town in Richland Co. IL in SE Illinois, due West of Vincennes, IN).

Well, there it is...this should provide plenty of grist for the mill of the disaster-mongers.

Scientific Discovery o' the Day

The Weather Channel, Licensed Meteorologist Heather Tesch in Full Blonde Mode:

"Severe thunderstorms in the Southeast this weekend- damaging hail, strong winds, possibility of tornadoes. This could be bad!"

Naturally, this is all I could think of:

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

Apologies All Around! My Treat!

Why the constant rash of demands for apology? It should be unnecessary to give examples, just tune in any news channel, any day of the week. The political candidates are constantly spouting accusations, then indignantly demanding apologies when they are accused. As a result, a certain paranoia has crept in, whereby some persons and entites are almost in a pre-apology mode. I expect any day that I will begin hearing disclaimers before any public statement, and perhaps even placards on many buildings, that "I/We hereby apologize for anything we may have done, are doing today, or may do in future that is perceived as offensive to any individual or group, of whatever species or planetary origin."

It would be funnier if it were more absurd, and not coming to be seen as just part of a day at the office.....

Guilt by Association?

Every time I make a resolution that I'm not going to comment on the campaign circus.....well, there I go again. Allowing for the fact that I'm not a fan of anyone currently running for President, or in the current ugliness, POTUS, I fail to understand the flap over Barack Obama's minister. As it is being currently disucssed, if any evidence whatever comes to light that Mr. Obama has been in the church and heard so much as a word of any of Rev. Wright's "extreme" sermons, then he is somehow indicted and ruined as a candidate. OK, OK, maybe it's just another one of those things that lets people say "-well, he lied about it," but that's not really the important thing, at least not to me.

It seems to me that this is a classic case of guilt by association. It is as if I was permanently and irreparably damaged at some time in the past because I:

1. Listened to some sermon in church attacking abortion (or Masons). As a Catholic, this was/is practically inevitable, so I'm assuming this has occurred, although I have no specific memory of it. This, of course, means nothing, as it may all be repressed and just waiting to come out.

2. Watched Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (as I've said before, if you don't know what this is, toddle over to Google), which is so compelling that watching even a few minutes (out of your peripheral vision, while talking on the phone, drinking a beer, and being hit on the head) is bound to make me some kind of closet Nazi.

3. Listening to a speech by any of our Great Communicators (was that FDR, or JFK, maybe Ronnie Reagan or Slick Willie or......), which by this theory means whichever one I listened to first permanently infected me with his ideas, like a virus, and no matter what I think I think, oh, no, boyo, you're that, and forever.

We are therefore contaminated by the very "diversity" of our lives. By this theory we're all dirty, of course, and permanently screwed. When the campaign moves into the Trunks vs. Donks proper, I can't wait until whichever of the Democratic candidates is nominated accuses John McCain of being a latter day Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate. He was obviously brainwashed into a deep mole during his stay in the Hanoi Hilton, and so how could you ever vote for.......exactly the same sort of thing that person or persons unknown are trying to do now by smearing Barack Obama with the brush of Rev. Wright.

But you get the idea. Unfortunately.

If People Can't Communicate.....

"People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else."

- B.R. Myers, "Keeping a Civil Tongue," The Atlantic, April 2008

My Brewing Skills

Homebrewing is an underrated activity. It's just another form of cooking, basically, with enough lab sanitizing procedures thrown in to create flashbacks to my blithe college daze in bac-T lab. With a little care, and the sources of ingredients available on the Internet, it's possible to produce quite a palatable product. So far, we're drinking a Copper Ale (something like a Killian's or a Leinenkugel Red, but better than either), an Octane IPA -not too heavy on the hops- and a Lemon Coriander Weiss, which is a crisp product that goes well with lunch or in the middle of the day.

I bottled a Power Pack Porter on Wednesday, and will rack a batch of Amarillo Ale today (I'm not that sure how this one will turn out, except that it should be in the Pale Ale category). I still have 5 gallons of Noble Trappist Ale maturing in a secondary fermentation vessel. I'll leave it in there about two months, and bottle the first week of April......should be drinking it by mid-summer.

It's more fun to drink something you've made yourself.

Too Busy to Blog

Whoo- a whole month without posting. A lot of family events, a lot of driving, a lot of dirty weather. The details don't matter; it was February, which should suffice. To save time, I might quote from William H. Gass' In the Heart of the Heart of the Country:

"For we're always out of luck here. That's just how it is— for instance in the winter. The sides of the buildings, the roofs, the limbs of the trees are gray. Streets, sidewalks, faces, feelings— they are gray. Speech is gray, and the grass where it shows. Every flank and front, each top is gray. Everything is gray: hair, eyes, window glass, the hawkers' bills and touters' posters, lips, teeth, poles, and metal signs— they're gray, quite gray. Cars are gray. Boots, shoes, suits, hats, gloves are gray. Horses, sheep, cows, cats killed in the road, squirrels in the same way, sparrows, doves, and pigeons, all are gray, everything is gray, and everyone is out of luck who lives here."

ITHOTHOTC- p. 199

Isn't that Special?

Yet another badly conceived idea.....and from the same Democratic Party that spent much time screaming at the last election that all electronic balloting methods, or anything that didn't leave a paper trail, was being used to cheat them. Now we have Internet voting, from that same source, even more unproven and risky than Diebold machines or whatever. From "hanging chad" to off the deep end, in only 8 years.....

I reflect, however, that this is consistent with a philosophy that any votes, from whatever source, are valid and desirable, be it (as the article relates) from some hacker in Eastern Europe, the tombstones in the graveyards of Chicago, etc.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. Get over it.

Cf: the neverending national pastime among some people of blaming George W. Bush for everything from the War in Iraq to fallen arches, I found this post on Peeve Farm, which is usually worth visiting....and the comments contained this quote from Parliament of Whores, by P. J. O'Rourke, which is even more basic and to the point:

"We treat the president of the United States with awe. We impute to him remarkable powers. We divine things by his smallest gestures. We believe he has the capacity to destroy the very earth, and - by vigorous perusal of sound economic policy - to make the land fruitful and all our endeavors prosperous. We beseech him for aid and comfort in our every distress and believe him capable of granting any boon or favor.

The type is recognizable to even a casual student of mythology. The president is not an ordinary politician trying to conduct the affairs of state as best he can. He is a divine priest-king. And we Americans worship our state avatar devoutly. That is, we do until he shows any sign of weakness, and disability, as it were. Sir James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, said: "Primitive peoples... believe that their safety and even that of the world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men... Naturally, therefore, they take the utmost care of his life... But no amount of care and precaution will prevent the man-god from growing old and feeble... There is only one way of averting these dangers. The man-god must be killed." Thus in our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character."

This is the real point, which means all the Bush-bashing is, and always has been, hot air and irrelevant. Even absent belief in this, he's made his last State of the Union. He's a lame duck. None of it matters any more, even if some believe he's Beelzebub, and Cheney is Mephistopheles, or whatever. Just drop it.

The Customer is almost always wrong....

.....and Democracy as an answer is basically a crock. I was just listening to a podcast featuring an interview with the brewmaster, Peter B., at New Belgium Brewery, Fort Collins, CO talk about what he does. He went off on the interviewer when he started in about his beer "styles." He said, "I don't like the term "styles." I am an artist....I make 10 minutes of pleasure. The customer doesn't have a clue what he wants. Nobody wanted Fat Tire or Mothership Wit until we made it, and they liked it and started drinking it."

And he is right. Nobody knew they wanted to hear Bach's music until he started writing it. I could never have conceived of the technique displayed by Seurat in Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte, (because it is based on color theory, a subject that I have zero interest in, per se) yet I never tire of looking at it. At the risk of being repetitive, another of the great myths of the modern age is that Democracy somehow provides answers. People have no idea what they want, it's just those running for office who are so sure they know what to give them- good and hard. It's just a way of being, and it may be good or it may be bad. It may be, as Winston Churchill said, just the least of a an array of evils, but it, and those who vote, have no more idea where it is best to go than a roll of the dice would provide.

Time to go....

A chunk of my ancestors emigrated from Lithuania, and high time to go and visit, particularly as this is a sign of the incipient dipshittery that is overtaking.....other places, before it's totally gone.

State of the Art

The discussions about plug-in electric vehicles always seem to tip-toe around the real question, which is performance. Can an electric vehicles equal the performance of a current fossil-fuel vehicle? Only if you don't plan on selling it, like the Tesla, which A) isn't real at this point, and B) if it were, would sell for over US $100K. So- the answer = no.
As for another level of practicality, in a very different vehicle, the answer is, yeah, sorta, as instantiated by the Electrovaya Maya-300. Which is a "real" all-electric car, which can be manufactured now, and uses none of the other fanciful components that other hypothetical vehicles propose to use. No unobtainium, dilithium crystals or Disneyite in this thing.

The downside? Very few would voluntarily buy the thing or drive it, unless they were forced at gunpoint. It's a roller-skate, and even though it has a range of 120 miles, does so at a maximum speed of 25-35 mph.

In this

Do we see the raise, much less call?

I admit I have very little stomach remaining for the global warming debate, from the standpoint of what's causing it. There's no doubt it's happening.....just like there's no doubt people see moving lights in the night sky. The question goes beyond these; in the case of the latter, "Where is an actual UFO?"
The obvious pertinent questions about global warming are "Should we do anything about it?" or "What / how much of X should we do about it?" and the kicker, "Are we going to do anything about it?"
For discussion of issues relating to the fossil fuel question (and increasingly, I think the word is "imbroglio"), you can't beat Robert Rapier's R-Squared Energy Blog. Recently, he discussed the final question, whether or not we're likely to ever voluntarily "go all in." Answer: probably not.

The Last Lion

Anyone who goes through what used to be a normal K-12 educaton in the United States, and really got caught up in Literature classes, could hardly help becoming something of an Anglophile.....at least of what Britain was. This is long gone, of course, and I had long dismissed the U.K. as merely a museum of the Old Greatness.
However, these things don't go all in a day, and there can still be echoes of the wonder that was Britannia. I was reminded of this in the recent death of George MacDonald Fraser. I reproduce the following excerpt in its entirety, not just because I can, but because it's not so far removed from my own sentiments toward the U.S.

The last testament of Flashman's creator: How Britain has destroyed itself
by GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER

When 30 years ago I resurrected Flashman, the bully in Thomas Hughes's Victorian novel Tom Brown's Schooldays, political correctness hadn't been heard of, and no exception was taken to my adopted hero's character, behaviour, attitude to women and subject races (indeed, any races, including his own) and general awfulness.
On the contrary, it soon became evident that these were his main attractions. He was politically incorrect with a vengeance.
Through the Seventies and Eighties I led him on his disgraceful way, toadying, lying, cheating, running away, treating women as chattels, abusing inferiors of all colours, with only one redeeming virtue - the unsparing honesty with which he admitted to his faults, and even gloried in them..
And no one minded, or if they did, they didn't tell me. In all the many thousands of readers' letters I received, not one objected.
In the Nineties, a change began to take place. Reviewers and interviewers started describing Flashman (and me) as politically incorrect, which we are, though by no means in the same way.
This is fine by me. Flashman is my bread and butter, and if he wasn't an elitist, racist, sexist swine, I'd be selling bootlaces at street corners instead of being a successful popular writer.
But what I notice with amusement is that many commentators now draw attention to Flashy's (and my) political incorrectness in order to make a point of distancing themselves from it.
It's not that they dislike the books. But where once the non-PC thing could pass unremarked, they now feel they must warn readers that some may find Flashman offensive, and that his views are certainly not those of the interviewer or reviewer, God forbid.
I find the disclaimers alarming. They are almost a knee-jerk reaction and often rather a nervous one, as if the writer were saying: "Look, I'm not a racist or sexist. I hold the right views and I'm in line with modern enlightened thought, honestly."
They won't risk saying anything to which the PC lobby could take exception. And it is this that alarms me - the fear evident in so many sincere and honest folk of being thought out of step.
I first came across this in the United States, where the cancer has gone much deeper. As a screenwriter [at which Fraser was almost as successful as he was with the 12 Flashman novels; his best-known work was scripting the Three Musketeers films] I once put forward a script for a film called The Lone Ranger, in which I used a piece of Western history which had never been shown on screen and was as spectacular as it was shocking - and true.
The whisky traders of the American plains used to build little stockades, from which they passed out their ghastly rot-gut liquor through a small hatch to the Indians, who paid by shoving furs back though the hatch.
The result was that frenzied, drunken Indians who had run out of furs were besieging the stockade, while the traders sat snug inside and did not emerge until the Indians had either gone away or passed out.
Political correctness stormed onto the scene, red in tooth and claw. The word came down from on high that the scene would offend "Native Americans".
Their ancestors may have got pieeyed on moonshine but they didn't want to know it, and it must not be shown on screen. Damn history. Let's pretend it didn't happen because we don't like the look of it.
I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn't present the picture they would like.
My forebears from the Highlands of Scotland were a fairly primitive, treacherous, blood-thirsty bunch and, as Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, would have been none the worse for washing. Fine, let them be so depicted, if any film maker feels like it; better that than insulting, inaccurate drivel like Braveheart.
The philosophy of political correctness is now firmly entrenched over here, too, and at its core is a refusal to look the truth squarely in the face, unpalatable as it may be.
Political correctness is about denial, usually in the weasel circumlocutory jargon which distorts and evades and seldom stands up to honest analysis.
It comes in many guises, some of them so effective that the PC can be difficult to detect. The silly euphemisms, apparently harmless, but forever dripping to wear away common sense - the naivete of the phrase "a caring force for the future" on Remembrance poppy trays, which suggests that the army is some kind of peace corps, when in fact its true function is killing.
The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions.
The selective distortions of history, so beloved by New Labour, denigrating Britain's past with such propaganda as hopelessly unbalanced accounts of the slave trade, laying all the blame on the white races, but carefully censoring the truth that not a slave could have come out of Africa without the active assistance of black slavers, and that the trade was only finally suppressed by the Royal Navy virtually single-handed.
In schools, the waging of war against examinations as "elitist" exercises which will undermine the confidence of those who fail - what an intelligent way to prepare children for real life in which competition and failure are inevitable, since both are what life, if not liberal lunacy, is about.
PC also demands that "stress", which used to be coped with by less sensitive generations, should now be compensated by huge cash payments lavished on griping incompetents who can't do their jobs, and on policemen and firemen "traumatised" by the normal hazards of work which their predecessors took for granted.
Furthermore, it makes grieving part of the national culture, as it was on such a nauseating scale when large areas were carpeted in rotting vegetation in "mourning" for the Princess of Wales; and it insists that anyone suffering ordinary hardship should be regarded as a "victim" - and, of course, be paid for it.
That PC should have become acceptable in Britain is a glaring symptom of the country's decline.
No generation has seen their country so altered, so turned upside down, as children like me born in the 20 years between the two world wars. In our adult lives Britain's entire national spirit, its philosophy, values and standards, have changed beyond belief.
Probably no country on earth has experienced such a revolution in thought and outlook and behaviour in so short a space.
Other lands have known what seem to be greater upheavals, the result of wars and revolutions, but these do not compare with the experience of a country which passed in less than a lifetime from being the mightiest empire in history, governing a quarter of mankind, to being a feeble little offshore island whose so-called leaders have lost the will and the courage, indeed the ability, to govern at all.
This is not a lament for past imperial glory, though I regret its inevitable passing, nor is it the raging of a die-hard Conservative.
I loathe all political parties, which I regard as inventions of the devil. My favourite prime minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, not because he was on the Right, but because he spent a year in office without, on his own admission, doing a damned thing.
This would not commend him to New Labour, who count all time lost when they're not wrecking the country.
I am deeply concerned for the United Kingdom and its future. I look at the old country as it was in my youth and as it is today and, to use a fine Scots word, I am scunnered.
I know that some things are wonderfully better than they used to be: the new miracles of surgery, public attitudes to the disabled, the health and well-being of children, intelligent concern for the environment, the massive strides in science and technology.
Yes, there are material blessings and benefits innumerable which were unknown in our youth.
But much has deteriorated. The United Kingdom has begun to look more like a Third World country, shabby, littered, ugly, run down, without purpose or direction, misruled by a typical Third World government, corrupt, incompetent and undemocratic.
My generation has seen the decay of ordinary morality, standards of decency, sportsmanship, politeness, respect for the law, family values, politics and education and religion, the very character of the British.
Oh how Blimpish this must sound to modern ears, how out of date, how blind to "the need for change and the novelty of a new age". But don't worry about me. It's the present generation with their permissive society, their anything-goes philosophy, and their generally laid-back, inyerface attitude I feel sorry for.
They regard themselves as a completely liberated society when in fact they are less free than any generation since the Middle Ages.
Indeed, there may never have been such an enslaved generation, in thrall to hang-ups, taboos, restrictions and oppressions unknown to their ancestors (to say nothing of being neck-deep in debt, thanks to a moneylender's economy).
We were freer by far 50 years ago - yes, even with conscription, censorship, direction of labour, rationing, and shortages of everything that nowadays is regarded as essential to enjoyment.
We still had liberty beyond modern understanding because we had other freedoms, the really important ones, that are denied to the youth of today.
We could say what we liked; they can't. We were not subject to the aggressive pressure of specialinterest minority groups; they are. We had no worries about race or sexual orientation; they have.
We could, and did, differ from fashionable opinion with impunity, and would have laughed PC to scorn, had our society been weak and stupid enough to let it exist.
We had available to us an education system, public and private, that was the envy of the world. We had little reason to fear being mugged or raped (killed in war, maybe, but that was an acceptable hazard).
Our children could play in street and country in safety. We had few problems with bullies because society knew how to deal with bullying and was not afraid to punish it in ways that would send today's progressives into hysterics.
We did not know the stifling tyranny of a liberal establishment, determined to impose its views, and beginning to resemble George Orwell's Ministry of Truth.
Above all, we knew who we were and we lived in the knowledge that certain values and standards held true, and that our country, with all its faults and need for reforms, was sound at heart.
Not any more. I find it difficult to identify a time when the country was as badly governed as it has been in the past 50 years.
We have had the two worst Prime Ministers in our history - Edward Heath (who dragooned us into the Common Market) and Tony Blair. The harm these two have done to Britain is incalculable and almost certainly irreparable.
Whether the public can be blamed for letting them pursue their ruinous policies is debatable.
Short of assassination there is little people can do when their political masters have forgotten the true meaning of the democracy of which they are forever prating, are determined to have their own way at all costs and hold public opinion in contempt.
I feel I speak not just for myself but for the huge majority of my generation who think as I do but whose voices are so often lost in the clamour.
We are yesterday's people, the over-the-hill gang. (Yes, the old people - not the senior citizens or the time-challenged, but the old people.) Those of ultra-liberal views may take consolation from this - that my kind won't be around much longer, and then they can get on with wrecking civilisation in peace.
But they should beware. There may well be more who think like me than the liberal Left establishment likes to think. When my views were first published in book form in 2002, I was not surprised that almost all the reviewers were unfavourable. I had expected that my old-fashioned views would get a fairly hostile reception, but the bitterness did astonish me.
I had not realised how offensive the plain truth can be to the politically correct, how enraged they can be by its mere expression, and how deeply they detest the values and standards respected 50 years ago and which dinosaurs like me still believe in, God help us.
But the readers' reactions to the book were the exact opposite of critical opinion. I have never received such wholehearted and generous support.
For the first time in 30 years as a professional writer I had to fall back on a printed card thanking readers for writing, apologising because I could not reply personally to them all.
Most of the letters came from the older generation, but by no means all. I was made aware that among the middle-aged and people in their 20s and 30s there is a groundswell of anger and frustration at the damage done to Britain by so-called reformers and dishonest politicians who hardly bother to conceal their contempt for the public's wishes.
Plainly many thought they were alone in some reactionary minority. They had been led to think that they were voices muttering to themselves in the wilderness.
Well, you are not. There are more of you out there than you realise - very many more, perhaps even a majority.

• Edited extract from The Light's On At Signpost by George MacDonald Fraser (published by Harper Collins)

Quote o' the Day.....

"Well, three different men have won in three different primaries. Tell us [Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice, Lou, Bud, Moe, Curly, Larry].....where is this all headed?"

Oh, Boo Hoo Hoo

In what passes for contemporary culture:

1) It is evidently necessary to apologize for any perceived injury, real or imaginary.

2) It is evidently necessary to grovel- abjectly.

3) It is now becoming de rigueur to characterize the offense being apologized for as "inexcusable."

4) It is also becoming very common for people -whether or not they have what would be called in court "standing to sue," i.e., they were not the supposedly aggrieved party- to refuse to accept the apology. For an example of this, take the Way-Bac Machine to about a year ago, and review Hizzoner Al Sharpton's responses in the Don Imus / Rutgers fiasco.

For those who may not be familiar with this phenomenon, consult the Washington State case of the cancer patient ordered to remove her hat in the courtroom.

.....but this is only the tip of the iceberg, even though it contains all the essential elements of the current disease.

Questions raised include:

1) Is all this apologizing just an attempt to equate the putative offender with the victim, the "We're all just victims" nonsense? (cf. present political campaigning, if you don't understand what this is about.)

2) Nothing is more characteristic of human beings than mistakes. Whatever happened to "Um- I didn't think about that. Never mind?" Instead, it's become "I am a filthy bastard and not fit to pick your nose, o you whose very feces are an untrammeled delight."

3) An apology, by definition, craves pardon. If it's inexcusable, why apologize in the first place?

4) Am I going to bump someone in the grocery store tomorrow, say "Excuse me," and have another person standing within earshot say "I absolutely refuse to accept your apology?"

5) How much weirder is this country going to get?

Riddle me this....

Question asked by Paul Begala on the "new, improved" Imus in the Morning on RFD-TV: Why don't the Democratic candidates talk about the recession instead of firing accusations at each other about race, gender, and the pecking order as heirs of the civil rights movement?

Possible answer: Mr. Begala makes the startling statement that it is part of the Democratic platform that we have a consumer economy, thus presumably we need to encourage spending. (I thought that a consumer economy had been a given since at least V-J Day, but moving right along....) What is unclear, I should think, is how consumers are going to have that money to spend given the already announced intention of the Democrats to raise taxes / eliminate tax cuts.

Maybe that's why they're not talking about it.

Missing it.....

What I've been able to stand watching in re primary campaign matters has left me with one major question. With all the yammering about "fresh starts" and "new beginnings," has there been anything said about "stable governance?"

I didn't think so, it's pretty boring, anyway.

Not the point, really....

Somehow, it seems appropriate to begin blogging in the new year with a note on energy. The Web abounds with "cure for cancer" articles, this one in the Guardian Unlimited claiming that Nanosolar's cheap printed PV cells will revolutionize power generation. The problem is that power generation has never been the problem. It's power storage that's the issue. The consumption of electricity is far from linear, and it's not very portable. It comes down to the venerable battery, and despite the claims of Duracell, Energizer, etc. hasn't changed all that much since Alessandro Volta invented it. Give us the next Thomas Edison, Edwin Howard Armstrong, John Bardeen or etc. and an increase in battery storage capacity and durability of an order of magnitude, and then -and only then- will you have what has become a contemporary cliché, "this changes everything."

Is this possible? Given my understanding of basic physics -which is pretty basic- I'd have to say, along with the Magic 8-Ball, "Don't count on it."

Oh, Happy New Year!