An Inconvenient Truth

Someday, I plan to write some thoughts on Islam. I have not solidified a position on the matter. I do have issues with it, but I would not say I trust sites like LGF. People are always saying where are the moderates. Well, I think I have found some. This group of Muslims is offering to pay for lawyers to help the John Does being sued by the Flying Imams, which is more than any Christian groups are doing. If anything, the Methodists would be hiring attorneys for the Imams.

Of course, I hardly want this blog to descend into rampant kumbayahism, so I have found a moslem whom I can sink my anti clerical teeth into. Sheik Mohammed Omran has told his followers at an Ozzie mosque that the terrible drought Austtralia suffers from is caused by the displeasure of Allah. I am guessing the implication here is that if the denizens of the land down under convert en masse, the heavens will open.

The Sheik did not have the thinking cap on when he came up with this one. Now, the home of Islam and the most Islamic of nations is in Arabia. When you think of Arabia you think of, let me think here, desert, sand , dry, hot. Enough, I am starting to choke with thirst from my little word assocition. My guess is that Allah must really hate Arabian Muslims. Whereas every now and then Austalia lacks for rain, the drought in the peninsula is never ending.

While we are on the subject of moisture or the lack thereof, the point goes to Jesus on this one,

"the rain falleth upon the just and the unjust"

An Injustice against one, blah, blah, blah

I got this from my daughter. Another reason why she is homeschooled. I'm sure glad we did not shell out cash no matter how chic the uniform.

Every now and then I see the bumper sticker with "If you think education is expensive try ignorance." How true.

Anyone raised in the environment knows a school with Padua in the name is Papist. They ain't like they used to be.

Oh,and if any feminist wants to slam me. I am under no illusions. You could do just as much damage at a boys' prep.

I am so much more obnoxious now that I can post youtube. the voice of humility institute is instituting the Youee Prize for youtube stuff it likes and this is our first award. Great work, Mr. Albino.

UPDATE So my son came home and we asked if he wanted to watch it. In a bored know it all tone, he let me know they have been ending women's suffrage for a year now and Mr. Albino's creation is not original.

We have not decided whether or not to rescind our award.

schadenfrende

I'm a nobody from nowhere. If that were not enough, I've taken up blogging and it has not exactly been a self esteem lift. I edit and think I've got it right and a few days later, when I'm deleting the word processing document and see my uncorrected mistakes, I do feel stupid. I feel Sister Therese is looking down from above and saying, "We did not expect much anyway."

So when a major institution goofs up, it is a boost to my spirits. In an article by Michael Powell and Nina Bernstein titled In Tragedy, Glimpsing Oft-Overlooked Newcomers’ Lives I came across this paragraph,

"Lurking behind their economic troubles is another reality. Roughly 3,5000 Malians enter the United States each year on temporary visas. But precious few attain achieve citizenship: About 85 Malians a year, and as few as 19, since 1996. Only a handful have been granted asylum, typically women seeking refuge from genital cutting, which is widespread in West Africa."

Mike, Nina, (please, I hope you don't mind me being so familiar) I think you meant "attain or achieve." Don't mention it. I am always here for you. Okay, Sister Therese, lay off!

I know, I know. I'm being unfair. Mike and Nina work fast and leave the editing to someone else. Maybe all the money lost at the paper of record has meant the lesser staff is not as good as it once was. I'm jus greatful, becaus f they can slak of at the Grae Lady, So ken i.

Hat tip to Dennis Mangan.

A NATION ONCE AGAIN. maybe not.

From Taki's Top Drawer I came across De La Rey. De La Rey is an Afrikaaner song from the new South Africa. It mentions no dissatisfaction with the current government, but glories in the righteous struggle against Britain in the Second Anglo-Boer War. It is sung by a young Afrikaaner who performs under the name Bok van Blerk. I've read it described as a rock song, but is more a folk ballad. It is like a good Irish rebel tune in that it sounds to be a great song to sing after a pint or four, I'd guess as my four pint days are long gone. The Brits no longer govern so one would think it is all a bit harmless.

Except that South Africa has a lot of history. Different racial groups, different ethnic groups in what is termed a rainbow nation, but is not much of a melting pot. The question is, is the song just about resistance to the colonial conqueror or is there a subtext of wanting to go back to the bad old days of Afrikaaner enforced apartheid? Beats me. Mr. van Blerk has said he is singing not about triumphalism, but pride in who he is. Fair enough.

Koos De La Rey was a brilliant and chivalrous general who fooled a number of English officers gallant enough themselves to see his greatness. He had not supported a war with the imperial government, but like Lee, gave it his all when it came. After the war, he did his best to reconcile Boer and Brit. His record on race, I know not, nor has anything I've read go into it. I'm surprised the thought police have not looked into this. So because of the man's sterling rep he was chosen as the eponymous Boer of the new nation. Nah, his name worked better in song than De Wet or any of the other war heroes.

Of course the thought police may not have a take on General De La Rey, but they do have a verdict on the young Afrikaaners who have a few brewskis and sing the ballad teary eyed and surprise, surprise, it ain't good. Hey, I'm a world away, so what do I know. They could be dead on. Still, there is little doubt from experience where they would come down.

Max du Preez, anti apartheid Afrikaaner when it was not easy to be one, puts it this way,

There's an element here of a search for identity, a search for pride, he said. They had to go back 100 years to find a hero to praise because there was nothing in between. After the Anglo-Boer war there is nobody in Afrikaner history that you can glorify except maybe rugby players.

Du Preez sees the song as cover for resentment at the post-apartheid order.

When they sing about how nasty the British were to the Boer women in the concentration camps and "general come and lead us because we will fall around you", they're not thinking about the British, they're thinking about blacks. Their enemy is now black.

Afrikaners don't have a cause anymore. They have become their own cause over stuff like affirmative action and crime.

Hey, the guy is there on the ground so I am not the man to say he is wrong. He may be the right fellow to look into the collective soul of his countrymen. I would like to know what he thinks the young Afrikaaners should adopt as an identity other than just fading into oblivion.

Another Afrikaaner, Newspaper editor Tim du Plessis, puts it this way,

University lecturers who are in regular contact with smart young Afrikaners say there is a steely determination among these youngsters that has been absent for quite a while. They come to the universities to equip themselves to stand on their own feet. They no longer complain about affirmative action because they believe to do so is futile. The are asking no favours from the new SA.

They know the public sector is a no-go area and they don't care. The corporate sector is best avoided also because of affirmative action and black economic empowerment (BEE) rules.

As one student put it: "I want to qualify as a professional or start a business where I can work for myself, be comfortable, but remain small enough not to be bothered with BEE. Or become well-qualified so that I can work anywhere in the world."

also,

Afrikaners are merely migrating to a new space. It's a natural, spontaneous process without the erstwhile marshals of the Nat party, the Broederbond and the Afrikaans churches.

It's not the dead-end radicalism of the Boeremag, but it's also not ANC co-option personified by the acquiescent presence of Marthinus van Schalkwyk in the Mbeki cabinet.

They had no choice but to become new South Africans. Now they want to be new Afrikaners."
Who is right, how will it work out. In time, we shall have an answer.

But, it is not just South Africans who have an opinion in the matter. One American blogger,calling herself NYMary, has looked into the Afrikaner soul, or at least listened to the music and found it wrongthink, and so replied to one of her commenters..

Well, enjoy your rage, but I claim the right to call bullshit on it. A line like "And the Khakis are walking over a nation that will rise again" is not a historical referent; it's a threat, a warning to uppity blacks that they had better keep their place. To NOT see that is willfully blind. We have Lynryd Skynryd and Charlie Daniels; you have these guys.

There is not much to say about the American groups she cites as I don't know if I have ever heard their music. As to the threat part, the big question is, is someone walking over the present day Boer? If no one is, and the intent is to threaten the innocent, then she is right. NYMary does not really go into this. If someone is walking over the Afrikaaner, maybe the song hits a nerve, but it would not be totally uncalled for. After all, genocide watch has raised an alert regarding the ongoing murder of white farmers. During the days of Apartheid, I doubt NYMary types were saying whoa when the refrain of "One settler, one bullet," was heard.

One might think there is subtext in NYMary's post. Maybe she and all other Americans who spent years incensed at the ancien regime see this song and think, didn't that nice old ANC sweep those horrible whites out the door or at least under the rug. How it inconveniences her to have to know these people still exist and again address the issue.

Ultimately, what is stupid about slagging the Boer no matter what he tries is put well by a fellow named Wessel who blogs as Mhambi,

What Afrikanerdom means today is eminently up for grabs, by cutting them no slack, by expecting the worst, intellectual left Afrikaners will help define Afrikanerdom as intrinsicly right wing. That is sad because its simply not true.

The inner contradictions of Apartheid* doomed it. World wide activism shortened its life. Are the contradictions inherent in the new system enough to cause it to come apart? I would guess the South African state will continue in some form but with more and more separateness. It is to be lamented, I guess, but it is hard enough to love one's neighbor when you are the same ethnicity. It is really tough when such things are not shared. Just ask the Hutu and Tutsi.

*See Preferential Policies by Thomas Sowell, page 30.

Also, Steve Sailer points out over at Taki's Apartheid did not much exists in the meaning of Apartness,

The problem with South African apartheid was not the idea of apartness, but the manifest dishonesty of its implementation. South African whites didn’t actually want to live far apart from blacks. Who else was going to serve them as cheap maids and farmworkers? They couldn’t possibly be their own hewers of wood and drawers of water, now could they?

Below is an excerpt from an South African English language TV newsmagazine discussing the De La Rey phenomenon.

Rudy, we hardly knew ye, or, maybe we know you too much

February, 1978. Massachusetts is buried under snow that was delivered during a Winter hurricane. All week on TV a man in a sweater is talking to cameras and updating the citizenry and saving them. Or so it was claimed by a supine media and the legions of hacks that served him. There has never been a storm like that and everyone who lived through it prays fervently that it never happens again and fear is so embedded still that if anyone sees a flake in February, the groceries are cleaned out so the populace can face life without despair.

The TV savior was Michael Stanley Dukakis, the only Hellene who could bring gloom to a big, fat Greek Wedding. The problem with his performance was the people didn't really buy it. He was ushered into the political wilderness for a term after he was defeated by another democrat at the next election.

So, come 2001 and another pol takes the helm at a disaster and gets the people through the emergency. The problem is there is no baseline to measure performance. People ramming planes into skyscrapers has happened only once and so we can't say Rudy did a good job compared to all the other mayors who have had to so cope. Anyway, has anyone ever analyzed all those decisions he made on 9-11. Maybe he is superior to sliced bread, but how do we know?

What we do know is not all that great. He was big into witch hunting Wall Street as that is always good copy. He made two innocents,Richard Wigton and Timothy Tabor, do the perp walk. After ruining them, he had to drop the charges two years later.

Give him credit, he hired Bill Bratton to put in place an intelligent policing strategy. Of course, too many people gave credit where credit was due and Bratton had to be fired.

It is not all horrible. There is at least one reason to vote for him. He probably looks better than Hillary in a dress.

The Past is Another Country

Via Russell Wardlow's link, I visited the Dawn Patrol website and in scrolling down came upon the video above. I must be fairly healthy for a dedicated gourmand as I thought cardiac arrest would happen. The video is about the May Procession held every Spring in the parish I grew up in during the fifities. I never remember it being other than sunny on those days. I and my sibs were part of them when we attended the parish school.

I am sure someone could do a dissertaion on all this. The pastor who is patting the dog in the video was a wonderful man. I tend to be a sceptic in most things. It is impossible for me to get away from the faith of my ancestors partly due to people like him. If the priest who took over after he died had been there earlier, I am sure I would now be Richard Dawkins instead of just anti clerical. There are other things too. I feel guilt over the way I mistreated the nuns. The few times I run into people from the school, the ones who always sucked up to the nuns are the ones who now claim to have been horribly mistreated.

Lovely music, beautiful ritual, it is all gone. Catholicism is now, in this country, little more than "Unitarianism with a pope," according to the novelist, D. Keith Mano.

Oh, the church that you see at the beginning, it burned down a year or two ago. It was beautiful inside.

For more about life in Eastern Mass during and after the 1950s visit Ponderosa65

How many young souls must be destroyed before we do something!

Per Michael Brendan Dougherty

I was thinking just that when I tried to go to sleep last night. It was an uneasy night. Some ancient nightmare ran through my bones and rattled my guts. I saw feverish, ugly things happening in D.C.: ghosts heckling men in suits, think tanks erupting in purple flames, my friends calling out my name but I couldn't help them. Awful things. Then a light grew in the middle of it, blotting out that vision and and a child's voice said "Get out!"

The soul destroying leviathan that is our federal capital is in the process of claiming another victim. the voice of humility has no choice but to again demand that the seat of government be moved to a difficult environment. Yes, somewhere in Wyoming or some other freezing, cold, bleak landscape must become our new federal city.

Our quadrennial search for a führer

Not that anyone cares but I have been suffering a case of the slows. Not Spring Fever but Pre Spring Fever as self diagnosed. Anyway, the voice of humility intends to look at the candidates and shoot from the hip and the first installment is below.

It is that time again, the juices of ambition start to flow in senators, ex senators, governors, tree wardens and numerous other lads and lassies who dedicate their lives to the nation with no thought to any rewards other than the service they render. So for an inauguration day in January of 2009 we are now to be subject to candidates some of whom have been running since the last inauguration, if not since their childhoods.

Now, I use the term search for a führer. In truth it is not the volk that is searching for a führer but the potential führers who are searching for a volk. After all, Der Führer himself, Big Dolph* never got a majority of the German electorate and only got 43.9% even after the Reichstag fire. Memo to all candidates, if you are looking for a draft, you will have to manufacture it yourselves.

So in our country, every four years it is party time for ghost writers. Remember all those books from yesteryear. Jimmy Carter supposedly wrote Why Not The Best? to propel himself to the Oval Office. If you think it is more important to read than say, The Iliad, you can get it for 1 cent on Amazon. What I don't get is that after writing Why Not The Best?, he ran anyway.

How about Faith of My Fathers, the deathless prose of John McCain's ghost writer? Give the straight talker credit because he gave his ghost writer credit on the cover. Still, if someone says to John, "a penney for your thoughts?" he can send them to Amazon.

Plus ça change et Voilà,** we have a new wonder boy. and he has not one but two best selling books*** to inspire the nation. To be fair, he actually wrote them. Not only that, for awhile there, you could not go by a newstand without seeing Barack Obama's picture.

So what is his appeal? I've talked to people who are intrigued and I never get an answer of any substance. I can only guess that it seems he personifies what middle class white folk, while as ever, distancing themselves from the lumpen honky, want to see in a black candidate. He seems to be, in the words of Archie Bunker, "One of the good ones." Though my college educated, light skinned fellow countrymen and women would be horrified to hear it put that way, what else could it be? He has almost no track record. His schooling has been elite, but what does that prove? There is nothing to see.

Except there is. On October 22, 2002 He spoke against the impending Iraq adventure.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Yep, pretty clear and, as time has proven, correct. He has since seemed to come on board what ever it is the Dems have as a policy or non policy on Iraq. However, if these are his words and not just those of advisors and speech writers, he does have something under the cap.

Still, he could never get my vote as he would be the candidate of a cargo cult.

* To all those goofballs who approve of someone they call a populist: Please note, Herr Schicklegruber was the most successful populist of the last century.

** I assume this is bad French. It is the only kind I know.

*** The audacious Udolpho had some fun with one of your man's bios. I had never thought of The Temerity of Mild Physical Arousal. I am sure it will be the title of a tell all autobiography someday.




'

I think I've found what I've been Looking for.

Glaivester has an old post on something called White Privilege. He links to Sara Anderson who does not like it.

All I know is this is horribly unfair. I am a descendant of the most benighted peasantry in history. We have never been wealthy or powerful. Why have we been left out. We are so melanin challenged we burn but never tan. Why don't we qualify.

There is an injustice here that needs to be righted. I want some of that White Privilege and I want it now.

Che sera, sera.

So the Boston Teachers are planning a one day strike. For a group that is always proclaiming their devotion to the children, this is shocking. Well, no it is not. A union exists for the same reason any business does, to maximize value to its owners.

I grew up in a union family. My grandfather had a hand in starting one. As someone who at least has libertarian tendencies, I know I am supposed to hate the union. I vaguely remember hearing years ago on TV Milton Friedman speak about how unions were eventually irrelevant as automation and some other factors would end up causing workers to become superfluous. I guess he was right. My guess is that dad and his co workers did as well as they did more because their work demanded a good deal of intelligence and thus the pool of workers was not vast. At the very least, I suspect their union activity did them and the company little harm.

Teachers postal workers and all the vast panoply of paper shufflers employed at all levels of government are a different story. I forget where I read the words of C.S. Lewis wherein he said that under socialism, every strike was a civil war. Solidarity proved that in Poland and the socialists lost a civil war, at least temporarily. Our situation is different. Government and government employee unions are in a neverending civil war against .........us. That is, the rest of the population that is not civil service or connected in some way in say, think tank land.

One might posit that this cannot last forever. In theory, I might agree. It would appear that, as the day gets closer when almost all citizens and a good deal of the legal and even some illegal aliens are employed by Holy Mother State and there are only a few hundred people actually working and producing and paying astronomical taxes, something has to give. Certainly, there would be some justice in the spring finally snapping and sending the pieces flying everywhere. It would get ugly and I for one hope that something doesn't give.

Maybe the few geniuses the creeping idiocracy still produces will bring about Ray Kurzweil's singularity and pull our fat from the fire. Maybe Greg Cochran's coming abundance will happen. Maybe the smart guys who run the fed do know what they are doing. I hope so. I like myself enough that as much as the system might deserve to die, I do not wish it, The collapse will not be happy for moi, or, may I say, vous.

Why is it so hard to say au revoir?

I am tired of thinking about the ongoing debacle in Iraq. I really did not want to read Dennis Dale's The Spiel and the Damage Done. Unfortunately, I had some free time. Dennis highlights the National Interest Online's interview with Michael Scheuer concerning the recently released National Intelligence Estimate.

I don't think there is anything that Dennis writes that I disagree with. There is one point where he distills the argument down to the like duh point:

"That's why Sheuer (and he suggests the NIE, judging by that portion of it that's been declassified) says we are damned if we stay and damned if we go. I say, in that case, we go."

The thing speaks for itself.

You just slip out the back, Jack

"Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free"

Message to Republican Congress guys and gals-JUMP SHIP NOW

Okay some of you are not all that vulnerable as you were elected or returned to your senate seat last fall and have a period of time to distance yourself from any mistakes your party makes as the holder of executive office. The mistake that is contemplated could turn out to be the mother of all goofiness.

Reps and senators up at the next general election should be giving this some thought. Also, that not rare species, presidential hopefuls should be thinking about this too.

You do not want to be caught in anyway being associated with the president if there is going to be an Iran adventure. The Persians are not likely to look on this kindly and could close the Straits of Hormuz and that might send a barrel of petroleum to $250. Now that is roughly five times the current price. So if five times the barrel price is $250, the equivalent (caution, I am no econoist and am guesstimating) at the pump might be around a tenner.

Now, my Rpublican solon friends, if this comes to pass, let us guess how you will be perceived. I do not think the term "Skunk at a lawn party" is at all too harsh. So it wasn't your idea. Tell that to the voters!

Keep in mind, I do not consider you as any better or worse than the Dems, but they will not be tarred with the same brush. Information from Econbrowser. Hat tip Dennis Mangan.

At least no one wears bell bottoms anymore

Russell Wardlow has posted the following on his blog,

Tattoo You

Standing outside a busy restaurant last night and idly watching the patrons go in and out, I was struck intensely by the hope that sometime in the near future, say five or ten years, tattoos will regain their once shady and disreputable status and the tens of millions of crudely inked fools will have to either slink around in embarrassment or spend thousands of dollars to have them removed (hopefully painfully).

I yield to no one in wishing les enfants would come to their senses. I would be happy if a non painful removal process were discovered if only people would quickly de decorate themselves.

Unfortunately, there is scant hope for optimism. The descent has been constant since my childhood. If our fellow citizens were going to suffer shame they would reverse the general trend of slobbinesss in attire that has pervaded the nation. I fear we are a nation that cannot be embarrassed.

So where is the trend going. I have never had the inclination for piercings or tattoos, so I don't know the level of discomfort associated with it. I did read, years ago on the net, where one fellow wrote about the pain being part of the process of piercing. If that is so, and things only get more extreme, look for something that looks worse and hurts more. Branding is the next thing. I expect to see outside of Fenway Park, vendors selling little B shaped irons so Sox fans can prove their devotion with even greater mindless fanaticism. Green Day fans can display that obsession. You name it, you can wear it.

At least Russell can take solace that if their will be no improvement, the decline will be accompanied with great pain. Of course, I would never find joy in that.

The Space Cadet Actually Was A Space Cadet.

Who knew?

All that testing and qualifying and nobody noticed a screw loose.

I've heard she will soon be requesting an assignment on the Space Shuttle Rehab.

Then again, I don't even know what I like.

I don't know if it still happens, but when I was starting my so called professional life in the big city, a small detachment of youngish folks would come into the office bearing some merchandise (usually leather goods, if I remember correctly) and tell us that their boss wanted to help us out by giving us a good deal or some such palaver. One Friday afternoon, it was always Friday afternoon, such a crew came into our offices bearing copies of paintings that you have probably seen prints of, but might not know the names or titles, though the term impressionist could cross your mind. No one bit and they headed toward the elevator to leave as I was going in the same direction to get to our other floor. I was cornered as the leader of the pack began a strong sales pitch on his one victim.

Now, I am ashamed to say, as a young man, I was a rude and obstreperous fellow. In one area of my life, however, I have always tried to be unfailingly polite. Telemarketers, salespeople and the like I have always done my best to indulge. Call me up at dinnertime and offer me a mortgage and I will apologize that mine is paid off and wish you every success. I know such people are not earning big bucks and for some reason unknown to myself, feel compassion for them.

Trapped as I was, I wanted to escape with manners intact. So when the pitch got to the point where I was actually asked if I wanted to buy, it would be important to not hurt their feelings while ending the sales pitch. My response, "Nah, I hate art."

Their first reaction was a look of shock. I am certain no one ever had said that to them before. We are a nation of philistines, but it is criminal to admit it. As I kept a wide grin on my face, they quickly realized I was having them on and each actually let out a small guffaw and I was able to exit the elevator on good terms.

so why am I prattling on about this. Well, Asia Times columnist, Spengler went on about it too and shallow fellow that I am, I take that as vindication. His January 30 article, Admit it - you really hate modern art, spoke truth to art.

When I was in junior high, Pablo Picasso donated a painting to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. On some school field trip, I got to see his great work. Wishing to appear sophisticated, well, not completely unsophisticated, I kept my mouth shut. I knew it was junk not because I know art, but because it looked like something I might have painted in the parochial school art class when they told you to do your best because your work might be picked to be exhibited and judged at the Diocesan school art fair. My efforts were never chosen.

Herr Spengler avers that people are okay with going to a museum and passing by the work of such heavy hitters as Pollock and Picasso and others as they don't have to stay all that long. Not so with modern atonal music. Spend a bundle to hear some atonal masterpiece and you are stuck. Get up to leave and you brand yourself as a yokel. Better to just stay at home and rearrange your sock drawer.

Of course, Spengler is talking about Arnold Schoenberg, pioneer and poster boy for atonality. Now all I had ever heard by Arnie, until a few years ago, was Verklärte Nacht as that is all that is ever played on the Boston commercial classical radio station. To be honest, though they play it periodically, I have no memory of it. Then again my knowledge of the arts would make a dilettante look serious.

A few years ago, a local NPR station, an outlet of our nation's ministry of information, played your man's opus magnus, Moses und Aron. There was, of course, no dearth of pretentious gushing. Again, I am no expert, but does Alberto Gonzalez know about this? Forget waterboarding, just expose the malefactors to this one opera. They will soon be singing their own arias.

Spengler ties the decline in Symphony attendance to the muted loathing of modern music. If that is so, James Levine, successor to Seiji Ozawa as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, must be a kamikaze as he has taken it as a mission to promote Schoenberg. Banzai.

Speaking of pretentious gushing, I would like to say, last week, the Ministry of Information, outdid itself, but, I can't. It is their practice to highlight some mediocrity as something special. You know, "cutting edge," "Ahead of his/her time." This time it was a poor, dead English guy named Nick Drake. There must be something culturally backward about me, as I never heard of him. Supposedly, he is enjoying a revival. Of course, If he is actually enjoying it, one cannot say. The term revival is wrong as well as he never had much of a vival to have a re of to begin with. They went on about his sad, depressed, druggie life and how it effected his art. I do tend to get hooked by these stories. Then, they play the music and the spell is broken.

It is not that NPR is completely horrible. The stations do have some great music and their treatment of news is better than the five seconds newsradio will give a story, though the bias is obvious a mile away. Most of my countrymen and women believe that classical music is on the oldies stations, but at least they are not snooty about it. Spotlighting a Nick Drake or, say, a Suzanne Vega as high culture is a joke. NPR is welfare for a section of the middle class that perceives itself an intelligentsia, and who am I to judge.

Dog Bites Man

A member of the Hispanic Caucus has quit because of a name she was called. Certainly, one member of congress commenting on the morals of another is hardly gentlemanly (or ladylike), but is this news?

Only if it is not true.

Voting for Ronnie is an act of futility, and I shall follow him to the gates of hell!

Half Sigma has come out for eye of Newt Gingrich for president. One of the things he adduces in favor of former Speaker Gingrich's candidacy is "Even though he associates himself with the Christian right, I'm comforted by the fact that he's been divorced twice and has a lesbian sister." Great stuff altogether. Maybe someday your man will have a daughter and she will come home and say, "Dad, I'm getting married and I want you to meet my intended. Guess what, he's one of those twice divorced Christian rightists. I don't know his sister's sexual orientation, but with luck, she's gay." Chacun à son goût.

Personally, I think the lad is wasting his vote as Newt, whatever his good points is one of those eternal war on terror guys. The way we are doing this so called war it will last forever with no effect except to enrich a crew of shrewdies.

Okay, I have brought up the concept of a wasted vote. I am often told I've wasted my vote as it is usually cast for someone who has no chance of winning or is part of some outré party, which is essentially the same thing. This is a bizzare definition. To me, anyone who voted for George Bush wasted their vote. Had Kerry or Gore ascended to the throne, I suspect by now, I would feel the same about a ballot cast in their favor. Further, one is hard pressed to believe that a vote for Dole or another term for Bush père would have resulted in a golden age. Maybe, there is a feeling things would have been less bad then under Clinton, but was not that the hope with Bush fils?

Here in the Peoples Republic, it is rare that the candidate of the Cargo Cult is not annointed. As it is a near certainty, any thinking person is free to cast a ballot for someone other than the major party hacks without changing the outcome. Generally, all three of us do.

The Republicans in my state are ridiculous lemmings. I don't disparage them for not being able to develop a message that would appeal to the welfare state mentality extant here in the "Cradle of Liberty." That would be impossible to do without completely prostituting themselves. I can't stand that they position themselves as a bunch of wets so that they may gather the few crumbs that fall for the table. More, I loathe them because they have no concept of strategic voting. In the last presidential primary, they dutifully voted for W. He was the only one on the ballot. Better they had all voted in the Dem primary for Al Sharpton. A great showing for Tawana's patron would have made the donkeys look stupid as Al is a clown, but you can't say that without having your racial correctness questioned. With the field such as it was, Al might have even scored a plurality and beaten Kerry. That would have been a vote not wasted.

As Gene Healy has pointed out, citing Loren Lomasky voting is like cheering. The idea that voting really really means something when no matter who gets elected, there is so little regard for the constitution in any of the three branches is silly at best.

Having said that, there is someone I do intend to cheer for in this election. I intend to vote for him with enthusiasm even though I am aware that he has no chance of scoring even a tiny blip on the electoral radar screen. I assume that the few of you who read this unworthy blog can figure who I am talking about. Yup, I'm shilling for Ron Paul. Though I cannot say that I am the world expert on the Congressman, from what I have read in following him as I have there is no where we disagree. If by a miracle, he actually won, it would be as if I won and did not have to serve. Can it get better than that?

I know, I know what you are saying. If he were to win, he would change. Heck, if he even got the nomination and could smell the possibility of actual election, he'd have the horrible temptation to move to the center and betray me. I read the Emerson quote, "Every hero becomes a bore at last," and it has never not happened in my life. I don't care, because what the hell. Anyway, he could have gotten ahead by going along and he has never yet done so.


Also, and this is key, he is still a practicing obstetrician, so I know he delivers.

BLACK WEDNESDAY

“Jockey of Norfolk, be not too bold,

For Dickon, thy master, is bought and sold.”


When the fix is in, there is nothing you can do. Your struggle will be merely writhing in the net.The fix is in and it has been for a long while. Border agents Ramos and Compean are coldly being hung out to dry. I am not the only one to comment on this, Dennis Mangan cites Russell Wardlow and Parapundit has weighed in.

I don't write with any hope of seeing the trend reversed. Our betters have decided on a course from which they will not be deterred. I don't know much about why they are so determined, but the actions of the last years are such that only wilful blindness would keep one from seeing what is going on. Sure, the meatprocessors and employers of domestics and other groups want a lot of serfs. Why it is so passionately pushed by so many others, well who knows?

The only thing I care about now are the little guys, Compean and Ramos. I read the Fox News account, and maybe they did violate a procedure or two and deserve some administrative action, but to go to a foreign country to find and immunize a drug mule carrying 740+ pounds of marijuana in order to give them each more than a decade of time is so small and vicious to leave me speechless.


Dennis quoted Russell Wardlow and I shall as well:

" feel like the only decent thing is to write more often about this truly shameful and infuriating spectacle, but it quite honestly makes me so angry that saying anything that's coherent and not laden with obscenities is too difficult."

Russell is right, of course, but it is just another signal of what is in store. Freeing the two men would be a good thing that I devoutly wish for, but in the end it will not matter. We are all being sentenced with them.

FREE THE BORDER TWO

Schools For Scoundrels

The Libby trial is to start this week. I have no particular view on on the matter. He is not being tried for his real crime as a law against Gross Neoconnery is not on the books.

Still, he and his ilk are part of an American political problem that needs to be solved. I assert with no proof that we have to end student government.

You remember student government where a bunch of smart, smarmy kids learned early in life how to game the system. In theory, we were all supposed to be part of a process of government education. Most kids did not care, so a small cabal got favors from staff and faculty and learned it felt good. They also figured out the Woody Allen maxim about showing up making a difference. These kids graduate and climb up the sewer pipe of legislative staff, think tanks, journalism et voila, they become our rulers. It is a horrible apprenticeship. If the Libbys of this world, bright lads and lassies all of them, had not this scam, they'd have studied more useful subjects and benefitted us all.

Thi mini democracy should be replaced with a year long study of the Federalist Papers* and De Tocqueville as well as the constitution. We should not bother anyone under 90 IQ with study, but require they memorize the constitution. It may do no good, but it is within their ability and if they can throw back something of what they learned at their rulers, we are all just a tad safer.

* Full disclosure: I remember almost nothing of the Federalist.

n. 1. A citizen of a metropolis, especially one who displays urbane characteristics, attitudes, and values.

On Udolpho's website is a picture on the right side of a movie poster. I had clicked on that and read his review. Liking it, I decided to do the Inter Library loan thing and requested it. I quickly forgot that I had done so. Generally, it is easy to get any book or movie from the Massachusetts system. There was a problem as Metropolitan appears to have attained "cult" status. No library wanted to give out their criterion dvd edition. They are not so protective of the VHS copies so that when, months later, I realized the dvd was not coming, I received the old technology version in short order.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I forgot most of what Udolpho had written and it was an entirely new movie to me. I have watched it a few times now and see more to like with each viewing. That it was made for $100,000 in 1990 seems near miraculous until you think of the atrocities made for vast sums.

Metropolitan is a lost world. It was a world that was not even on the radar screen for most of us when it was in flower. I must be a reactionary to like it so much. Perhaps it is the contrast with our current republic of bad taste of which I am, to my shame, an all to willing part.

Anyway, it is a movie worth seeing and if you haven't, read Udolpho's review and then wait several months.