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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
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| Thursday, August 6th, 2009 | | 11:19 am |
| | Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 | | 11:14 am |
| | Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 | | 2:22 pm |
| | Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | | 2:54 pm |
| | Friday, June 12th, 2009 | | 4:47 pm |
| | Friday, June 5th, 2009 | | 3:05 pm |
Maybe it's folly...
...to stand athwart "progress." But here's a good [IMO] book review that covers some ideas that I think we should keep in mind as we observe and participate in how our government handles our daily lives. Driving north out of New York the other day, I heard a caller to Mark Levin’s show discuss his excellent book Liberty and Tyranny. The word she kept using was “inevitable”: The republic felt exhausted, and there was an “inevitability” to what was happening. A quarter-millennium of liberty seemed to be about the best you could expect, and its waning was—again—“inevitable.” As she spoke, the rich farmland of Columbia County rolled past my window. To many of its residents, the caller would have sounded slightly kooky. Were any of the county’s first families suddenly to rematerialize from their centuries of slumber, they would recognize the general landscape, the settlements, the principal roads, and indeed many of the weathered farmhouses. And they would be struck by the comfort and prosperity of their successors in this land. So what’s all this talk about decay and decline? Ah, but I wonder if those early settlers would recognize the people, and their assumptions about the role of government. Mr. Levin’s listener was trying to articulate something profound but elusive. It’s not something you can sell the film rights for —there are no aliens vaporizing the White House, as in Independence Day; no God- zilla rampaging down Fifth Avenue and hurling the Empire State Building into the East River. No bangs, just the whimper of the same old same old civilizational ennui, as it gradually dawns that Admiral Yamamoto’s sleeping giant may be merely a supersized version of Monty Python’s dead parrot. Paul A. Rahe’s new book on the subject is called Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift, which nicely captures how soothing and beguiling the process is.[1] Today, the animating principles of the American idea are entirely absent from public discourse. To the new Administration, American exceptionalism means an exceptional effort to harness an exceptionally big government in the cause of exceptionally massive spending. The can-do spirit means Ty’Sheoma Bethea can do with some government money: A high-school student in Dillon, South Carolina, Miss Bethea wrote to the President to ask him to do something about the peeling paint in her classroom. He read the letter out approvingly in a televised address to Congress. Imagine if Miss Bethea gets her way, and the national bureaucracy in Washington becomes responsible for grade- school paint jobs from Maine to Hawaii. What size of government would be required for such a project? And is it compatible with a constitutional republic? ( Read more... ) chipper | | Friday, May 22nd, 2009 | | 1:28 pm |
A Noun in the Noun
Friday is poetry day. Did Gertrude Stein invent Mad Libs? A Light in the Moon
by: Gertrude Stein
A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even withstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain. Current Mood:  bouncy | | 8:33 am |
| | Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 | | 9:15 am |
Ahab the PERAB
If anyone's interested and able to watch, the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board meeting is going to be webcast this morning starting at 9:30 at www.whitehouse.gov (actual meeting starts at 10:00). Current Mood:  contemplative | | Friday, May 1st, 2009 | | 9:10 am |
Crisisitis
A quick blog entry from The New Republic... The Age of Perpetual Crisis
I like the free-flowing, rough-and-tumble, demotic character of Internet-driven media as much as the next blogger. Information can be addictive, just as sharp-edged opinions can induce an adrenaline-driven thrill. But what about historical perspective? And philosophical reflection? And level-headed analysis? The 24-hour news cycle and instant Internet updates don't foster those habits and may even be incompatible with them. And I'm afraid our culture is beginning to pay the emotional and intellectual price. ( Read more... ) Current Mood:  tired | | Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | | 4:30 pm |
Voting, Right?
Has anyone else been follwing the arguments on Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, between bouts of swine flu? From everything I've read about it, it seems to me that Section 5 of the Voting Rights act is probably long-since outdated. But it's kinda fascinating to read about some of the SCOTUS Justices twisting themselves into knots to call it unconstitutional... Anyway, this: How Can Rights Feel So Wrong?The Supreme Court takes aim at the Voting Rights Act.By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 8:06 PM ET
One way to think about the quest for racial equality in voting in America is to liken it to a long and arduous car trip. A trip delayed for almost 100 years, because although the 15th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of Servitude" in 1870, Southern states disenfranchised black voters for decades through poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. It was only when Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the road trip could finally begin. As is often the case with long car trips, almost immediately after the Voting Rights Act was passed, a chorus of wee voices from the back seat began to chorus, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" Those states singled out for extra government regulation wanted to know whether racism had yet been thwarted and they could have their autonomy back. Thus the Supreme Court has, since the enactment of Section 5 (which specifically targets election practices in mostly Southern states), heard four challenges to it. And each time the court has agreed that we haven't yet reached a place where Section 5 is unnecessary. But it's always been hopeful that day will come. ( Read more... ) Current Mood:  curious | | Friday, April 17th, 2009 | | 10:02 am |
| | Monday, April 13th, 2009 | | 1:39 pm |
What do you mean? This is exactly what we had in mind...
"Life finds a way."
-Ian Malcolm
No Changes for Berlin Zoo, Even After Bear Attack By RACHEL NOLAN BERLIN (AP) — The Berlin zoo doesn't plan to change security measures even after a polar bear attacked a woman who managed to jump into the bears' enclosure last week, an incident caught on video. "It is already safe," zoo spokesman Heiner Kloes said Monday. ( Read more... )"People who want to jump in will always find a way," he added.
Current Mood: confused | | Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | | 8:49 am |
For all my grammarians out there
I'm looking at you, Angelalala... http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZmJlNGI0Y2JkOGE3NjhhMzM4Mzc3NGJlYzY0Y2ViMjk= WordyEnglish just keeps expanding.
By Mona CharenMy children have started to become exacting grammarians. David, 15, is driven nearly crazy every time someone misuses the expression “beg the question.” It’s a good thing he is away on a band trip this week and didn’t catch a CNN report on the morning news. A story on the financial situation was phrased like this: “This begs the question: What happened to the TARP money?” Current Mood: chipper | | Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 | | 2:29 pm |
| | 8:57 am |
Obama Official Calls For Book Banning
Ok, so that headline isn't exactly accurate. But I have a feeling something very similar would have been plastered across the New York Times if a Bush appointee had said something like this...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqtChVqKsbm7fxITv4L6uoyMvs1wD974HCF80To be fair, the movie in question does look like a piece of low-grade partisan hackery. I'm sure it's idiotic. But that's not supposed to matter, right? Why aren't free speech advocates taking to the parapets? Where's the outrage? Get the lawyer who defended Larry Flynt on the line, stat!! First, they came for Hillary: The Movie, and I didn't speak up... Current Mood: confused | | Thursday, March 19th, 2009 | | 4:47 pm |
| | Monday, March 2nd, 2009 | | 1:45 pm |
Woe.
 EDIT: The pic is a link... :) Current Mood:  nervous | | Friday, February 27th, 2009 | | 4:02 pm |
Writer's Block: AKA
"Once I got famous, I couldn't even lurk anymore. I'd hear people saying 'Who's that lurking over there... Isn't that Merv Griffin?'" -Merv Griffin, as Himself/The Elevator Killer, in <i>The Man with Two Brains</i> | | Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 | | 3:58 pm |
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