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May 29, 2006
Life
"The pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite."
-- Julia Child
"My Life in France," by Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme (Knopf 2006)
Posted at 01:27 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Fun
May 28, 2006
Pictures from Easter break, 2006
The Apple House, Front Royal, VA
Monticello, VA
Monticello, VA
Monticello, VA
Monticello, VA
Monticello, VA
Stables at Rhodes Farm, Nellysford, VA
Stables at Rhodes Farm, Nellysford, VA
Vesuvius, VA
Posted at 01:57 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Fun
May 27, 2006
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams - knuckleheads?
Here's a curious trivia tidbit from U.S. history: In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams took leave from their Europe-based diplomatic duties and traveled to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit the home of William Shakespeare. Not much was recorded of the occasion, but one fact of their pilgrimage to the Bard's birthplace stands out: At some point during the tour, the two American statesmen brandished pocketknives, carved a few slivers from a wooden chair alleged to have been Shakespeare's, and spirited them home as souvenirs.In retrospect, it's easy to look back on this incident and conclude that -- in terms of travel protocol, at least -- Jefferson and Adams were complete knuckleheads. The thing is, I haven't seen any evidence to prove that, as world-wandering travelers, our quest for souvenirs has become any more logical or dignified in the last 220 years.
"Why We Buy Dumb Souvenirs," by Rolf Potts, Traveling Light, May 9, 2006
Posted at 01:44 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: America
May 20, 2006
"Sadism" or "fascism" or "nihilism"
It must have been infernal underneath King's Cross, but above ground no panic, no screaming, no wailing and beating the air, no yells for vengeance.I'm writing this in the early aftermath, but I would be willing to bet there will have been little or no bloody foolishness, either: no random attacks on mosques or shops or individuals. After all, devices on our buses and tubes are an open proclamation that the perpetrators don't care if they kill Muslims. Which, of course, is part of the point. When we use the weak and vague word "terrorism" we imply indiscriminate cruelty directed at civilians.
"Sadism" or "fascism" or "nihilism" would do just as nicely: all the venom that lurks just on the sub-human level of the human species.
In a tightly interwoven society, all that this poison has to do is ally itself with a certain low cunning.
"We Cannot Surrender: States which shelter these killers will know no peace," by Christopher Hitchens, Mirror.co.uk, July 8, 2005
Posted at 07:27 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Nihilism , Terrorism
May 18, 2006
Hot Air and Cheap Gas
Look, I don't like paying $60 to fill up my small car any more than anyone else. But we seem to have adopted the idea that we have a right to gas under $3 a gallon. No such right exists. Until the gas hits the tank in your car, someone else owns it. Asking the government to force a gas station to sell you gas at the price you want is like asking them to force the baker to sell you cheaper bread, or the vineyard cheaper wine. That's not how capitalist societies work.The really perverse thing about all of this is that at the same time they're carrying on about high gas prices, the same politicians are talking about the importance of alternative energy and our "oil dependence." But alternative energy sources will emerge the day they become more efficient and profitable than gasoline.
So long as gas is cheap, gas will continue to be our preferred source of energy. Once gas grows scarce, and consequently more expensive, other fuel sources will become lucrative -- at which point someone will develop them, sell them, and get rich from them.
But politicians can't just sit back and let the market take its course. They need to control things. So even as they're bending over backward to keep gas artificially inexpensive (staving off market incentives to develop alternative fuels), they're giving billions of taxpayer dollars to research and development boondoggles (read: corporate welfare) to find replacements for gas. It's waste stacked on waste stacked on waste.
"Political Posturing on Gas Prices Mostly Hot Air," by Radley Balko, Fox News, May 17, 2006
Posted at 06:34 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Politics
May 12, 2006
Duties of Citizens ... or the Rights of Clients?
Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self-determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.
"Leaving the left - I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity," by Keith Thompson, San Francisco Chronicle, May 22, 2005
Posted at 10:28 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Politics
May 04, 2006
"Easier to just shoot 'em, like a horse"
That was about four years ago. I had pretty much put it behind me (much like the lady in question), but then I read this story in the Boston Herald. A 78-year-old man with crippling foot problems wants to visit his severely-injured wife in the hospital, but the state says he should have expected his feet to develop this problem 12 weeks in advance -- because that's how long it can take to get a temporary handicapped parking permit. Even after the newspaper got in touch with the RMV's official spokesperson, Mr. Driscoll still might have to wait 30 days.And now Massachusetts wants to put the same kind of bureaucracy in charge of making sure everyone has health insurance.
It's no frigging wonder this state keeps re-electing Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. That it keeps both houses of its Legislature overwhelmingly Democratic. (138-22 House, 33-7 Senate.) It's nothing short of a miracle that they keep re-electing Republicans as governors, providing the slimmest margin of safety from complete and utter collapse.
(Note: this is partly a slam against Democrats, but more against giving too much power to one party. In New Hampshire, we've occasionally been utterly dominated by Republicans, but 1) not since the 70's or so; B) never to anywhere near that extreme; and III) even at their worst, the NH GOP was nowhere dangerous as the Bay State Democrats. Except, perhaps, when the Governor of NH wanted the National Guard equipped with tactical nuclear weapons.)
"Easier to just shoot 'em, like a horse," wizbang, May 4, 2006 (emphasis added)
Posted at 06:07 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Ay Caramba!
May 02, 2006
"European jihad"
I have remarked before that hatred against Jews now appears to become socially acceptable whenever Israel enters the picture. This has produced yet another Catch-22 for Jews, in that the issue of Israel has provoked a firestorm of anti-Jewish hatred, but if one draws attention to this anti-Jewish hatred in the context of Israel one is told such views are in fact perfectly acceptable. Thus the ‘world Jewish conspiracy’ is a lunatic pathological prejudice when used by neo-Nazis claiming that the Jews dangerously subvert the world, but entirely fair comment when university professors claim that Jews dangerously subvert American foreign policy.
"European jihad (2)," Melanie Phillips, May 2, 2006
Posted at 06:39 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Bigotry , Gynephobes