Waiting, waiting, waiting, to hear from a dear friend on the other side of the world, who may be dead as I write this. Not for the first time this week I'll be keeping her in my prayers tonight, and I ask our readers to say a small prayer of their own on behalf of a kind soul who seems to be giving up, in despair of ever rising above her tragic circumstances. While you're at it, maybe add a small prayer for me, if it's not too late, to find the words that may yet stay her hand from the final choice I fear she is poised to take for herself.
Still no answer today to my last letter. Of course, there's a million possible reasons why, you tell yourself; maybe that friend she mentioned is helping her. Maybe she's been successfully cheered up, and wants some time to steady herself before writing back. Maybe she'll even send one of her excrutiatingly bad jokes, like in the old days.
Or maybe she's finally given up on her dreams, buried by one burden too many... one too many obstacles to climb.
We're as much cursed as we are blessed with the potential to imagine a tantalizing crossroads between restlessness, pride, patience and forgiveness, that, like walking towards a rainbow, we seem able to approach, yet never reach; we feel the shadow of a promised peace, yet rarely the peace itself.
I guess that's why we so desperately need certain stories, pushing us onward, a whisper carried on the wind, to remember, friend, remember...
Remember to live in hope for a less elusive peace.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Holding New Life In Our Hands
Incredible: Pregnant mothers may soon be able to hold their unborn babies, as old technologies are ingeniously adapted in order to breathe a renewed hope into new life:"The technology takes data from data from ultrasound, CT and MRI scans, converts them into virtual 3D models, which can then be 'printed' as a plastic representation of the developing baby.
Jorge Lopes, a Brazilian designer, developed the ground-breaking technique for his PhD at London's Royal College of Art.
...
Rapid prototyping essentially collects data about the subject and lays down successive layers of material, in this case plastic powder, and in this way builds up the model from a series of cross sections.
...
"It's amazing to see the faces of the mothers. They can see the full scale of their baby, really understand the size of it," said Dr Lopes.
Some applications for the method, called rapid prototyping, could be to allow blind mothers to bond with their babies or aid case management of foetal malformation.
...
"For doctors this is a fantastic development and it is absolutely unique," said Stuart Campbell, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at King's College London. He hopes the technology can be used as an educational tool for expectant parents and to help mothers who have difficulty bonding with their babies.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Emasculate Culture.
Banalities beg the mind to ignore them. Raymond Ibrahim's phrase above, contrarily, jumped into my mind and found a permanent home immediately.
I'm like many, (if fewer, and a decreasing number, or maybe not so many at all,) guys who like to get laid, and I mean that in the sense of being with women, even one at a time if I can't do better. I've got a full complement of leather underwear, and a fireman costume for the hard to please. I'm some kind of class act. But for all that, it's getting harder to score when the competition comes out with Internet come-ons like: "Fortyish metro-sexual boy seeks nubile sex-monkey for swinging times. Have full sleeves and a Prince Albert. Have own skate-board. Require pot allowance. No cougars."
Yes, girls seek male attention, and they compete against other girls for it. To gain that attention, assuming that some girls are hotter than others and that some hot girls show it off well, less hot girls, as it were, have to compete by going a bit further, showing it off a bit more; and when the hottest of the hotties look like sluts to begin with, the girls who aren't in the rock-bimbette class to start with have to shake it all the moreso. That spiral is downward, some of us say. There are also guys like me, those with as much class as Obama.
It ain't working for any of us, even for the guys getting all the babes all the time. Not working for the babes either. It sucks, in a non-reproductive way. Girls aren't finding the guys they want because the guys they want aren't the guys they want. Girls are finding an increasing number of metro-sexual boys in their forties, just what so many asked for. These guys suck. And these guys too are craving male attention. We live in an "Emasculate Culture."
My guess is that masculine guys have always scored more than not so much guys. But in time, as Princess was looking for Prince Charming, a suitable guy came along and was just about as good as it gets, most couples being as happy as one can expect from this life. Now, from walking around checking out the babes, I see girls frantic to gain the favor of those few guys who appear good as opposed to the many who look so gay it's not even in the cards ever. Guys, maybe ordinary and just not in the rock-bozo class, have opted out altogether, skate boarding and smoking pot and trying aggressively to fail for the sake of winning, to gain the favor of girls to love them. Which brings me to that banality mentioned above.
Nature has its ways, and those who have Nature on their side will do better than those who don't. But as well as nature, i.e. what's natural, there's a matter of culture. Most people most of the time, conform to culture, regardless of it, in spite of the harm it does, because if they don't, they tend to lose big-time. For one thing, the best babes don't want losers. Most guys want the best babes, and they usually and happily settle for the best woman-- if they're really lucky. Women don't want losers; and yet they demand loser men, metro-sexual men, conformist, ordinary guys who just want to get along. Why do women want men they don't want? They don't. They reject them. And yet our culture demands that ordinary guys conform to the call for losers. It' what one might call a lose/lose-type situation. Popular culture demands loser-guys who can't find a girl. Many guys conform to loserness, and they lose. Girls lose too. Guys opt out from anything like hopeful relationships because there's no point in trying to make it with a girl who is desperate for a guy who isn't what she finds when he shows up dressed as per instruction, simpering and effeminate. Guys follow all the rules and end up screwed-- in a bad way. And for the ordinary girl to get any attention from a guy she might like, she has to compete with the sluts who have it all and give it all away cause they must to stay on top. And, though many won't like reading this, some have to compete against their mothers for young guys.
Most people don't think through the way of things cultural: they just do what they do. Culture, believe it or no, isn't necessarily in the interests of most people within it. That's the banality I referred to above. It seems though that such an observation isn't the banality I thought it to be. Some argue tautologically that existence is proof of success. If a culture exits, then it must be good or it wouldn't exist at all. Margaret Meade and Ruth Benedict and the like can spin that rubbish all they choose, but the fact is that a dysfunctional society can linger for millenia, carrying on miserably and not dying out till it dies. It's cultural relativism at its best. Culture doesn't benefit all its members equally. Most can suffer quite miserably and still live for generations and beyond, living like dogs and carrying on. The banality is that this is so. The profundity is that it's so commonly not understood.
com/post/?q=ZmU0MWFkODk5MTUxZWI4YWQzNGI0NGMzYmRjZWQyMTQ=
Somewhere along the line a gang of middle-class white kids from the rich suburbs decided that it's very cool to act "emasculated." The cool crowd gained prestige, and, viola, we have an Emasculate Culture. It's culture against the common man, which includes the common woman, rather obviously to any but those who don't get it; and it passes as "progressive" and good and laudable. Those who reject Emasculate Culture, those stupid conservatives who like Sarah Palin, for example, feel and perhaps rightly among the crowd, that they will never get laid if they don't conform to the metro-sexual paradigm. And yet, the fact is, looking no further than Todd Palin, these guys do get laid. They even have large families. They don't follow the norms of pop culture. They break the rules, and they get slagged by the conformists who aren't getting laid. Do everything culture demands, and you don't get laid, you get screwed. Culture ain't yer friend. But yes, culture can survive right up till the time Jimmy and Joey find they can't really get along with each other any longer, till they divorce each other, and wander off and die alone. Sort of like emasculated.
Of course, I might be full of shit here. Maybe this is the best in the best of all possible worlds.
This guy seems happy enough. And who am I to complain? Let's ask KLJ at "RockAss.net"
Straight guys often think I'm gay, as do really square straight women. Gay people almost never think I'm gay, except when I'm having sex with them.
I guess I'm a little femme, actually a little flamboyant is probably more accurate. Someone suggested I was a metro-sexual. Nope. Metrosexuals are too neat. I'm a slob, unshaven, shaggy haired, fingernails all a mess. The metrosexual club would certainly not have me as a member.
So, what do I do that's "Gay" and what does it make me?:
I'm like many, (if fewer, and a decreasing number, or maybe not so many at all,) guys who like to get laid, and I mean that in the sense of being with women, even one at a time if I can't do better. I've got a full complement of leather underwear, and a fireman costume for the hard to please. I'm some kind of class act. But for all that, it's getting harder to score when the competition comes out with Internet come-ons like: "Fortyish metro-sexual boy seeks nubile sex-monkey for swinging times. Have full sleeves and a Prince Albert. Have own skate-board. Require pot allowance. No cougars."
Yes, girls seek male attention, and they compete against other girls for it. To gain that attention, assuming that some girls are hotter than others and that some hot girls show it off well, less hot girls, as it were, have to compete by going a bit further, showing it off a bit more; and when the hottest of the hotties look like sluts to begin with, the girls who aren't in the rock-bimbette class to start with have to shake it all the moreso. That spiral is downward, some of us say. There are also guys like me, those with as much class as Obama.
It ain't working for any of us, even for the guys getting all the babes all the time. Not working for the babes either. It sucks, in a non-reproductive way. Girls aren't finding the guys they want because the guys they want aren't the guys they want. Girls are finding an increasing number of metro-sexual boys in their forties, just what so many asked for. These guys suck. And these guys too are craving male attention. We live in an "Emasculate Culture."
My guess is that masculine guys have always scored more than not so much guys. But in time, as Princess was looking for Prince Charming, a suitable guy came along and was just about as good as it gets, most couples being as happy as one can expect from this life. Now, from walking around checking out the babes, I see girls frantic to gain the favor of those few guys who appear good as opposed to the many who look so gay it's not even in the cards ever. Guys, maybe ordinary and just not in the rock-bozo class, have opted out altogether, skate boarding and smoking pot and trying aggressively to fail for the sake of winning, to gain the favor of girls to love them. Which brings me to that banality mentioned above.
Nature has its ways, and those who have Nature on their side will do better than those who don't. But as well as nature, i.e. what's natural, there's a matter of culture. Most people most of the time, conform to culture, regardless of it, in spite of the harm it does, because if they don't, they tend to lose big-time. For one thing, the best babes don't want losers. Most guys want the best babes, and they usually and happily settle for the best woman-- if they're really lucky. Women don't want losers; and yet they demand loser men, metro-sexual men, conformist, ordinary guys who just want to get along. Why do women want men they don't want? They don't. They reject them. And yet our culture demands that ordinary guys conform to the call for losers. It' what one might call a lose/lose-type situation. Popular culture demands loser-guys who can't find a girl. Many guys conform to loserness, and they lose. Girls lose too. Guys opt out from anything like hopeful relationships because there's no point in trying to make it with a girl who is desperate for a guy who isn't what she finds when he shows up dressed as per instruction, simpering and effeminate. Guys follow all the rules and end up screwed-- in a bad way. And for the ordinary girl to get any attention from a guy she might like, she has to compete with the sluts who have it all and give it all away cause they must to stay on top. And, though many won't like reading this, some have to compete against their mothers for young guys.
Most people don't think through the way of things cultural: they just do what they do. Culture, believe it or no, isn't necessarily in the interests of most people within it. That's the banality I referred to above. It seems though that such an observation isn't the banality I thought it to be. Some argue tautologically that existence is proof of success. If a culture exits, then it must be good or it wouldn't exist at all. Margaret Meade and Ruth Benedict and the like can spin that rubbish all they choose, but the fact is that a dysfunctional society can linger for millenia, carrying on miserably and not dying out till it dies. It's cultural relativism at its best. Culture doesn't benefit all its members equally. Most can suffer quite miserably and still live for generations and beyond, living like dogs and carrying on. The banality is that this is so. The profundity is that it's so commonly not understood.
Mark Steyn, "No future." The Corner, National Review Online.18 July 2009
The "alarmism" of my book seems to be going mainstream. Newsweek's economics editor Daniel Gross belatedly joins the demographic deathwatch on Japan:
Japan's population peaked in 2004 at about 127.8 million and is projected to fall to 89.9 million by 2055. The ratio of working-age to elderly Japanese fell from 8 to 1 in 1975 to 3.3 to 1 in 2005 and may shrivel to 1.3 to 1 in 2055. "In 2055, people will come to work when they have time off from long-term care," said Kiyoaki Fujiwara, director of economic policy at the Japan Business Federation.
Such a decline is cataclysmic for an indebted country that values infrastructure and personal service. (Who is going to maintain the trains, pay for social benefits, slice sushi at the Tsukiji fish market?) The obvious answers—encourage immigration and a higher birthrate—have proved difficult, even impossible, for this conservative society.
Mr Gross isn't quite there yet. One can be pro- or anti-immigration but, either way, it doesn't solve a baby bust as severe as Japan's. Up north, Leonard Stern writes:
A nation that doesn't replace itself becomes an aging nation, and that's why economists are terrified. Old people no longer generate wealth, yet they require huge amounts of state support in the form of health care, pensions and other programs... If Canada has never really sounded the alarm about the low fertility rate, it's because we had an antidote — immigration... Now it turns out that the curative power of immigration was vastly overstated. The sobering revelation arrived last month courtesy of the C.D. Howe Institute, the eminent Canadian think tank. The C.D. Howe folks crunched the numbers, did the modelling and discovered that the current influx of immigrants — about 0.67 per cent of the resident population — barely makes a dent. The data show that the only way immigration could offset the declining birth rate is if Canada dismantles border controls and floods the country with well over a half million immigrants a year. Even then, the government would need to impose rigid "age filters" to ensure that only young people are among the new arrivals. The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America - but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west.For much of the developed world, the "credit crunch", the debt burden, and the rest are not part of a cyclical economic downturn but the first manifestations of an existential crisis.
http://corner.nationalreview.Somewhere along the line a gang of middle-class white kids from the rich suburbs decided that it's very cool to act "emasculated." The cool crowd gained prestige, and, viola, we have an Emasculate Culture. It's culture against the common man, which includes the common woman, rather obviously to any but those who don't get it; and it passes as "progressive" and good and laudable. Those who reject Emasculate Culture, those stupid conservatives who like Sarah Palin, for example, feel and perhaps rightly among the crowd, that they will never get laid if they don't conform to the metro-sexual paradigm. And yet, the fact is, looking no further than Todd Palin, these guys do get laid. They even have large families. They don't follow the norms of pop culture. They break the rules, and they get slagged by the conformists who aren't getting laid. Do everything culture demands, and you don't get laid, you get screwed. Culture ain't yer friend. But yes, culture can survive right up till the time Jimmy and Joey find they can't really get along with each other any longer, till they divorce each other, and wander off and die alone. Sort of like emasculated.
Of course, I might be full of shit here. Maybe this is the best in the best of all possible worlds.
This guy seems happy enough. And who am I to complain? Let's ask KLJ at "RockAss.net"Straight guys often think I'm gay, as do really square straight women. Gay people almost never think I'm gay, except when I'm having sex with them.
I guess I'm a little femme, actually a little flamboyant is probably more accurate. Someone suggested I was a metro-sexual. Nope. Metrosexuals are too neat. I'm a slob, unshaven, shaggy haired, fingernails all a mess. The metrosexual club would certainly not have me as a member.
So, what do I do that's "Gay" and what does it make me?:
- I collect vintage Barbie dolls (mostly reproductions, I aint rich).
- I love women's fashion. I don't know the names of designers or anything, but I'll sit and people watch with you for hours and rip to shred what most folks are wearing, giving the occasional thumbs up. And before you get catty, rarely would I give myself the thumbs up.
- I watch Musicals. Love 'em. I've watched them since I was a kid.
- I dig Figure skating. Okay, I can't figure out why this is considered gay. It's the sexiest thing in the world. Ballet too. It's like porn only the people are better looking and you don't have to worry about them ruining everything by spitting.
- I have sex with men. No, just kidding. Ha ha. Really, I'm just kidding. Shutup.
- I cross my legs high. Drives my little brother crazy. "Dude, why do sit like that. Doesn't it hurt your balls?"
- My voice goes high when I get excited. My boss makes fun of me for this one all the time. It may have something do with crossing my legs high.
- I like pink. It's a fun color. Colors don't have genders. Get over it.
- I say "Get over it."
- Sometimes I pretend my girlfriend's really a dude. No, just kidding, heh heh. No, sweetie, really, I'm just kidding. Dang!
- I LOVE drag. I think it's an amazing form of entertainment and I just can't get enough. Though Sacramento doesn't offer very good drag. Tranny Shack at Club Stud in SF is where it's at.
- Salad spinner. I have one at home, and I want one to keep at work. I like to wash my lettuce before I have a salad or sandwich, and then I like it dry. So, a salad spinner. Allen thinks this makes me the gayest of the gay.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
American Hegemony
Former Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean remarked in 2003's New Hampshire primary, that America "should be planning for a time when it is not the world's greatest superpower : 'We have to take a different approach [to diplomacy]. We won't always have the strongest military.' "
I was remined of that famous quote the moment I watched this ominous scene:
For all his faults, and despite all the disagreements I have with his policies, I don't get any pleasure out of seeing this done to the President of the United States. It's a sight to sadden the soul. All America is being humiliated in this video, not just its President.
The genius of the American system of government is that it perceived the truth about the people it governs: that Man is a fallen being, with a capacity for evil, and certainly a propensity for error. The checks and balances, the struggle that is involved in getting anything done, is meant to test ideas and the mettle of the mind's they spring from. The notion that Man can become so wise as to not need advice, as to not benefit from the judgment that comes with scrutiny, must surely, almost by definition, be un-American.
Yet when balance and judgment and humility were most needed, where were they? How to keep faith in democracy if its implementation seems to weaken the very system it's meant to uphold? How to keep faith in America?
Why are these modern-day commissars not shaking the democratically-elected President's hand as he moves down this line-up? Are they not supposed to, according to the protocol of the event? If not, why doesn't President Obama know that? If they are deliberately snubbing him, why do they think they can get away with that? What faith do they have in America, and in Americans?
God help the Republic.
I was remined of that famous quote the moment I watched this ominous scene:
For all his faults, and despite all the disagreements I have with his policies, I don't get any pleasure out of seeing this done to the President of the United States. It's a sight to sadden the soul. All America is being humiliated in this video, not just its President.
The genius of the American system of government is that it perceived the truth about the people it governs: that Man is a fallen being, with a capacity for evil, and certainly a propensity for error. The checks and balances, the struggle that is involved in getting anything done, is meant to test ideas and the mettle of the mind's they spring from. The notion that Man can become so wise as to not need advice, as to not benefit from the judgment that comes with scrutiny, must surely, almost by definition, be un-American.
Yet when balance and judgment and humility were most needed, where were they? How to keep faith in democracy if its implementation seems to weaken the very system it's meant to uphold? How to keep faith in America?
Why are these modern-day commissars not shaking the democratically-elected President's hand as he moves down this line-up? Are they not supposed to, according to the protocol of the event? If not, why doesn't President Obama know that? If they are deliberately snubbing him, why do they think they can get away with that? What faith do they have in America, and in Americans?
God help the Republic.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Tuesday Tales
Reflections on matters large and small on a cold, damp Tuesday morning.Happiness: Talk show host Hugh Hewitt put politics aside for a terrific hour of radio a few weeks ago, testing his guests to justify "Why the Ancient Greeks matter". Specifically, how did the classics influence the Founding Fathers of America, and whether we in our busy lives should make time to read and study the likes of Homer, Aristophanes and Plato today. History buff that I am, my ears always perk up for the monthly visits from classicists John Mark Reynolds and David Allen White when they appear individually, so it was a particular treat to hear them tag teaming together to present their case. Professor White's final point, in particular, has stayed with me, a case of someone successfully putting a shape to the half-formed understanding I had of how I'd been trying to live my own life this past year:
David Allen White: How about "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." We have a false idea of liberty; we think it means that I can do whatever I want to do. Aristotle in the Ethics tells us that "no, real freedom consists of doing that which is Good". You can only be happy when you come to some understanding of goodness. Thomas Jefferson, the Pursuit of Happiness: we'll never be fully happy, because we'll never be fully good; but if we follow that brilliant notion from Aristotle which goes through all the Christian order, goodness does indeed lead to something like the happy life.
Another benefit from the show was news of Professor Reynolds' book on the subject, "When Athens met Jerusalem". Sounds fascinating..!
When the apostle Paul stood on Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17:16-34), he faced a listening audience prepared by centuries of discussion. Because Paul understood the intellectual baggage and issues of his day, he was able to impact and change the direction of that discussion. Paul changed the Greek and Roman intellectual world that day.
...
[C]hristendom was born in a time much like the start of the twentieth century. Religious uncertainty and change were in the air. Old ideas had failed spectacularly, but new ideas had not yet taken their place. Christians faced a cultural, political and social environment that was both attractive and, at least in part, hostile to the gospel. How they were able to not only survive but also thrive and create a better, more appealing culture is a good lesson for all Christians today. Even non-Christians, who may be swayed by facile attacks on the cultural importance or benefits of Christianity, can utilize such knowledge for better and more constructive conversations with the billion human beings who are followers of Jesus.
Concern: Has something happened to Suzanne's site, Big Blue Wave? I haven't been able to view it for weeks now, without it crashing on me.
Equity: Thomas Sowell's latest column, "A Personal Inequity": "The problem with trying to equalize is that you can usually only equalize downward."Verisimilitude: A Blackpool waxworks display serves as a humbling reminder that re-creating a lifelike resemblance in wax must be extremely hard to do well, and how much artistic talent is derived from skill at perception; the first skill to be exercised, yet the last to be mastered. Failures like this make me realize we should extend more praise upon those who manage to succeed in such a difficult medium.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Monday Margins
Back again after a bit of a blogging hiatus. Been so busy I've rarely even been online, let alone had time for blogging. Hope to get back into a regular routine again this week, starting with this collection of marginal news items that caught my wandering eye while trying to catch up on a month's worth of missed news.Double Hero: Amazing Washington teenager performs not one but two inspirational acts in one busy day. "It's all in a days work I guess," she says. "I mean, I don't see myself as [a hero]. ... I'm sure a lot of people would do the same thing."
Red Sun Rising: Last October we felt compelled to ask, "Will Japan become the new France?", after reading about the rising popularity of the Japanese Communist Party among young voters in Japan, partially resulting from the popularity of a comic book adaptation of the marxist novel, Kanikosen. This week the UK Telegraph offers its readers a troubling update: "Japanese turn to communists in downturn".
Rampant corruption combined with the spiralling unemployment caused by the global economic downturn has given the [Japanese Communist Party] a huge new support base.Winning hearts and minds, through popular culture like comic books. I wonder if that's been happening here, as well. [Ah: work in progress.]
Party officials say that more than 14,000 people have joined the cause in the last 18 months, a quarter of whom are under 30. Similarly, circulation of the party newspaper, Akahata (Red Flag) has risen to 1.6 million copies.
...
This increase in grass-roots support has been boosted by a manga version of Karl Marx's "Das Kapital," which sold more than 6,000 copies in the two days after it was released in December, and revival of interest in a 1929 novel titled "Kanikosen" that told of a rebellion among workers on a crab processing ship off northern Japan.
Despite the recent surge in its fortunes, Shii and his supporters accept that the JCP will not have a majority in the Diet in the near future. They will fight the national elections, of course, but they are focusing much of their attention on winning hearts and minds at the local level.
106th Birthday: An Indiana gardener celebrates the fruits of a life well-tended.
"I like to work in the garden, I like to play golf," Ethan says.
He began hitting the links at the young age of 72 and began ballroom dancing at 90.
...
And it's that on-the-go lifestyle that keeps this father, grandfather, great grandfather, and great-great-grandfather busy.
...
And Ethan's secret to longevity?
"I don't have any secrets," he admits. "I stay pretty active."
...
It is a remarkable birthday surrounded by family, friends, and more than a century of memories.
"I don't think you'd be able to add very much more to it. It seems just about perfect," Ethan concludes.
Home
I'm thinking of moving to the old homeland. Where to go? I'll consider gay rights, access to abortion, and the local recycling programme as well, I'm sure, in deciding for Obamanation or Palinville. What'll it be?
I'm not sure. For the sake of comparison, let's look at Texas:
http://harrisburgpa.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Georgetown&s1=TX&c2=harrisburg&s2=PA
| Crime Type | 2006 Total | Per 100,000 People | National per 100,000 People | |
| Overall Harrisburg Crime Index |  | 3246 | 6831.7 | 4479.3 |
| Harrisburg Violent Crimes | | 803 | 1690 | 553.5 |
| Harrisburg Murders | | 10 | 21 | 7 |
| Harrisburg Rapes | | 51 | 107.3 | 33.1 |
| Harrisburg Robberies | | 461 | 970.2 | 205.8 |
| Harrisburg Aggravated Assaults | | 281 | 591.4 | 336.5 |
| Harrisburg Property Crimes | | 2443 | 5141.6 | 3906.1 |
| Harrisburg Burglaries | | 629 | 1323.8 | 813.2 |
| Harrisburg Larceny/Thefts | | 1655 | 3483.2 | 2601.7 |
| Harrisburg Motor Vehicle Thefts |  | 159 | 334.6 | 501.5 |
| Harrisburg Arsons 1 | 32 | 67.35 | N/A | |
For more city crime stats go to AreaConnect and select a city.
I'm not sure. For the sake of comparison, let's look at Texas:
Latest 2006 Crimes per 100,000 People:
| Georgetown, TX | Harrisburg, PA | National | |
| Murder: | 0 | 21 | 7 |
| Forcible Rape: | 22.43 | 107.34 | 32.2 |
| Robbery: | 22.4 | 970.2 | 205.8 |
| Aggravated Assault: | 79.8 | 591.4 | 336.5 |
| Burglary: | 216.8 | 1323.8 | 813.2 |
| Larceny Theft: | 1171.5 | 3483.2 | 2601.7 |
| Vehicle Theft: | 107.2 | 334.6 | 501.5 |
Actual Reported Population and Crimes:
| Georgetown, TX | Harrisburg, PA | ||
| Population: | 40,121 | 47,514 | |
| Murder: | 0 | 10 | |
| Forcible Rape: | 9 | 51 | |
| Robbery: | 9 | 461 | |
| Aggravated Assault: | 32 | 281 | |
| Burglary: | 87 | 629 | |
| Larceny Theft: | 470 | 1655 | |
| Vehicle Theft: | 43 | 159 |
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Anarcho-Tyranny in the U.K. / Modernity-wide Psychosis
I've been through some wars and other man-made disasters, and I've seen some of the worst that Man is capable of. There's no end to the evil things people can do, even things I see around me daily in this distant and dismal city here in Canada surprising me. I've also seen things and witnessed heroism and glory beyond the ken of the average man. What I see now, what passes for normal, what passes for The Good, is so disturbing that I conclude that the Modern world I love so much is sick in mind and soul. Yes, I have my pet theory, but that must wait. Below I hope you'll bear with the length of the post to witness some of what goes on in our shared reality, such as it is. This is a world of Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious as intelligentsia.
The world has come to this: after writing about George Washington's dignitas, some hack at the New York Times concludes with this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/opinion/07brooks.html?ref=instapundit
From the Washington Post there's the flip side of the fascism of the Left, not the Führer worship but the demonization of the petit-bourgeiosie:
Joseph Ashby, "Lunacy on Parade," American Thinker. July 07, 2009
I suggest that many people are not intelligent even though they seem on the surface to be so, having, for example, high degrees from prestigious universities, a fair indication, as a rule, of some kind of intellectual competence, and further, that many of them are in positions of high public and private authority, by which I mean here our intelligentsia. As impressive as the titles and positions might well be, and even are, we still have what comes out in the light of reality to be intellectual monkeys. We have trained idiots holding positions of power and authority. Sarah Palin is "dumb as a mud wall'? It's a metaphor, to be honest, but stale and inappropriate. It's not mixed, but it's colorless and stupid. Sarah Palin isn't mute, i.e. "dumb." But to the point, what's the criticism and what is it based on? We have here a circle jerk, to be crude but plain. Our intelligentsia sit in a circle and each reaches over and plays with the one beside him, each thinking it's satisfying. How smart is that? I don't care if each and every one of them is happy about it. What does it have to do with anyone else? It's disgusting and shameful, and who cares about their status? Wouldn't you think of them as all the more disgusting for it?
Like monkeys imitating, we see the little monkeys doing it too. It's painful seeing little monkeys imitating large monkeys jerking each other off. We see below some moron in england aping his higher-ups, he likely knows not why. He's doing what his superiours are telling him, however indirectly. Little pukes do what big pukes do. And that., dear reader, can lead to the end of the world. Many people aren't thinking, and they never will. They just do what the rest do, even if it leads to destruction. Few like being on the outside. They'll do anything and not think about it at all, so long as it seems to be popular with those they fear and want to curry favor from. They want to get along and feel righteous. I call it stupidity. Why would we think it anything else? Well, we could consider it insanity. Unfortunately, it's normal.
archives/026851.php#respond
The case aboe is of a fool and a moron who doesn't get the tory at all. He's imitating others without a moment of thought of his own. He's usual. He's typical. He's ordinary and normal. That's a problem these days. It wouldn't surprise me to find the English national anthem changed to an old Sex Pistols tune. In fact, I think this should be it, at least till there is a reprisal of our Modernist revolution so suddenly halted in mid-stream.
sex+pistols/anarchy+in+the+uk_20123592.html
There are two kinds of people in this life: Modernists and primitives. The natural state of Humanness is a state of primitivism; and it's only in the past 250 years that Man has become Modern. Most aren't, and most will not become so in this period of history. Primitivism is normal. It's the way of Man. The monkeys of Modernity, our intelligentsia, are typical people of the typical sort. In my humble opinion, they are not special. They are just garbage. Removing them makes me happy, if only we could. We must do so if our revolution is to regain its course as the future of Humanness. It's not natural, this revolution. It's not the Human way of being. It's not going to et any sympathy from the primitives, even those sophisticated monkeys of the intelligentsia. They're up-scale Sex Pistols. They're going crazy and wrecking our world. They are nearly everyone, and unless we stop them because we believe in the just cause of Modernity, we will lose and be drowned. Us or them.
The world has come to this: after writing about George Washington's dignitas, some hack at the New York Times concludes with this:
Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system.
But it’s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules for self-mastery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
From the Washington Post there's the flip side of the fascism of the Left, not the Führer worship but the demonization of the petit-bourgeiosie:
Joseph Ashby, "Lunacy on Parade," American Thinker. July 07, 2009
Attempting to break the mold of mindlessness, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen has unleashed the full fury of his intellectual prowess on Sarah Palin.
Cohen’s piece manages to slog out 770 words without squeezing out an ounce of substance. He does make one thing clear: he lies awake at night worrying about Palin. Here is a sample of his Pulitzer-worthy commentary:
…dumb as a mud wall…
…utter disaster…
…awful…
…allergic to briefings…
…uncorrupted by knowledge…
…unfit for office…
…a ditz…
…utter disaster…
…awful…
…allergic to briefings…
…uncorrupted by knowledge…
…unfit for office…
…a ditz…
And Cohen gets paid to write this. Remind me again why newspapers are a dying business?
I suggest that many people are not intelligent even though they seem on the surface to be so, having, for example, high degrees from prestigious universities, a fair indication, as a rule, of some kind of intellectual competence, and further, that many of them are in positions of high public and private authority, by which I mean here our intelligentsia. As impressive as the titles and positions might well be, and even are, we still have what comes out in the light of reality to be intellectual monkeys. We have trained idiots holding positions of power and authority. Sarah Palin is "dumb as a mud wall'? It's a metaphor, to be honest, but stale and inappropriate. It's not mixed, but it's colorless and stupid. Sarah Palin isn't mute, i.e. "dumb." But to the point, what's the criticism and what is it based on? We have here a circle jerk, to be crude but plain. Our intelligentsia sit in a circle and each reaches over and plays with the one beside him, each thinking it's satisfying. How smart is that? I don't care if each and every one of them is happy about it. What does it have to do with anyone else? It's disgusting and shameful, and who cares about their status? Wouldn't you think of them as all the more disgusting for it?
Like monkeys imitating, we see the little monkeys doing it too. It's painful seeing little monkeys imitating large monkeys jerking each other off. We see below some moron in england aping his higher-ups, he likely knows not why. He's doing what his superiours are telling him, however indirectly. Little pukes do what big pukes do. And that., dear reader, can lead to the end of the world. Many people aren't thinking, and they never will. They just do what the rest do, even if it leads to destruction. Few like being on the outside. They'll do anything and not think about it at all, so long as it seems to be popular with those they fear and want to curry favor from. They want to get along and feel righteous. I call it stupidity. Why would we think it anything else? Well, we could consider it insanity. Unfortunately, it's normal.
UK deports terror threats!
Anjem Chaudary? Abu Qatada? Abu Izzadeen?
Nope. Kylie Shirley, age 14, and other members of the First United Methodist Church of Okeechobee, Florida.
When news stories danced and twisted and turned in order to avoid identifying the perpetrators of terrorist acts as Muslims, I've joked about Methodists committing terrorism -- maybe some UK official thought I was serious.
This incident is the direct fruit of anti-terror laws that were framed specifically in order to avoid giving the impression that they were drafted in order to fight against Islamic jihad terror. Such laws focus on minutiae and side issues, and 14-year-old Christians snapping tourist photos end up getting deported, while real Islamic jihad threats continue to operate freely in Britain, thumbing their noses at authorities.
One wonders how many jihadists from Pakistan eased through customs while British officials were detaining, questioning, and deporting the Methodists from Okeechobee.
Absurd Britannia Alert: "Teens from Okeechobee church deported from England after running afoul of anti-terror law," by Carolyn Scofield for WPTV.com, July 3 (thanks to L.A.):
OKEECHOBEE — Kylie Shirley took one picture in England.http://www.jihadwatch.org/The 14-year old and a friend posed in front of a window. Behind them is the British Airways flight that carried them to Gatwick Airport in London.
A few minutes later, guards confiscated her camera and cell phone.
Kylie and thirteen other members of the First United Methodist Church of Okeechobee were sent into a nearby room.
There immigration officials questioned, photographed and fingerprinted them before putting them on planes headed back to the United States.
"The guy from immigration came in and told us that we were going to be sent home and everybody started crying," says the 8th grader, who says England is her favorite country outside of the United States.
The church group was on a mission trip. They planned to help remodel the Islington Central Methodist Church and sightsee after that.
"When they were questioned about entry, we all gave the same answer," says Pastor Jim Dawson. "The answer was, we were here to do missionary work in a church."
The word "work" caught the attention of immigration officials.
Under the United Kingdom's tier system that's designed to deter illegal workers and potential terrorists, anyone doing any kind of charity or religious work must have a visa and Certificate of Sponsorship along with a passport.
The church group only had passports.
Dawson says they arranged the trip last year, before the rules went into effect. They booked everything through a travel agency in Tennessee.
The agency says it's the traveler's responsibility to know the rules.
So there they were, trapped in a room at Gatwick Airport, only allowed one phone call to the American Embassy.
William Shirley, Kylie's father, says within 20 minutes of going into the room, one immigration official told him they were already booked on a flight back to the U.S....
The group spent a year and a half raising money for the trip. Now they don't know if they'll ever get the $18,000 back....
The case aboe is of a fool and a moron who doesn't get the tory at all. He's imitating others without a moment of thought of his own. He's usual. He's typical. He's ordinary and normal. That's a problem these days. It wouldn't surprise me to find the English national anthem changed to an old Sex Pistols tune. In fact, I think this should be it, at least till there is a reprisal of our Modernist revolution so suddenly halted in mid-stream.
Right ! now ! ha ha ha ha hahttp://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/
I am an antichrist
I am an anarchist
Dont know what I want but
I know how to get it
I wanna destroy the passer by cos i
I wanna be anarchy !
No dogs body
Anarchy for the u.k its coming sometime and maybe
I give a wrong time stop a trafic line
Your future dream is a shopping scheme cos i
I wanna be anarchy !
In the city
How many ways to get what you want
I use the best I use the rest
I use the enemy I use anarchy cos i
I wanna be anarchy !
The only way to be !
Is this the m.p.l.a
Or is this the u.d.a
Or is this the i.r.a
I thought it was the u.k or just
Another country
Another council tenancy
I wanna be an anarchist
Oh what a name
Get pissed destroy !
There are two kinds of people in this life: Modernists and primitives. The natural state of Humanness is a state of primitivism; and it's only in the past 250 years that Man has become Modern. Most aren't, and most will not become so in this period of history. Primitivism is normal. It's the way of Man. The monkeys of Modernity, our intelligentsia, are typical people of the typical sort. In my humble opinion, they are not special. They are just garbage. Removing them makes me happy, if only we could. We must do so if our revolution is to regain its course as the future of Humanness. It's not natural, this revolution. It's not the Human way of being. It's not going to et any sympathy from the primitives, even those sophisticated monkeys of the intelligentsia. They're up-scale Sex Pistols. They're going crazy and wrecking our world. They are nearly everyone, and unless we stop them because we believe in the just cause of Modernity, we will lose and be drowned. Us or them.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
When a man loves a woman, if that's not too uncool.
When I heard that the kind-of-Black-guy pop star was kaput, I got excited. Then I found out it's Michael Jackson. I packed my bags for the trip to the memorial, but then I realized I'd left a glove on the coffee table, so I turned around and came home instead. I didn't feel like moon-walking all the way to L.A anyway.
Thomas Lifson, "Jackson funeral: BO Poison." American Thinker. July 07, 2009
com/blog/2009/07/jackson_funeral_bo_poison.html
Obama, Osama, Michael Jackson, I get them mixed up. They're all special though, as I understand it, which is probably deeply. 'Cause I'm bad.
http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-rama-come-moonwalk-with-me.html
Oh, you want good? Well, maybe this works.
Thomas Lifson, "Jackson funeral: BO Poison." American Thinker. July 07, 2009
The true extent of the media hype surrounding the death of Michael Jackson has been exposed. Fox News reports on air that as the Michael Jackson memorial was starting, tickets were being handed out to bystanders, as embarrassingly empty seats inside the Staples Center signaled reality refusing to conform to media-generated expectations.More: http://www.americanthinker.
Obama, Osama, Michael Jackson, I get them mixed up. They're all special though, as I understand it, which is probably deeply. 'Cause I'm bad.
http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.
Oh, you want good? Well, maybe this works.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Obama and the Commie Dwarfs
I see Obama all over this story, but where's Sarah Palin? Where does she fit in here? We got yer Obama, yer Chavez, Ortega, Castro, Amadinejad, the creepy little priest, any number of scums like Howard Zinn, but where's Sarah Palin to wash it all away?
Obama's not the only one to give the people of Honduras a rough ride: the S.G. of the U.N. is in on it too. He's with Zelaya today flying in to help the past president reclaim his lost spot. Who? This guy, standing up for Zelaya, like Obama's doing.
miguel-descoto
Obama can nod and wink at Amadinejed, and D'Escoto can schmooze with him too. One big happy family.
[d'Escoto embracing Ahmadinejad at the UN]Miguel_d'Escoto_Brockmann
UN Watch has this on the "special advisors":
com/2009/06/real_vs_an_authentic_world.html
Sarah Palin is like my mother, (assuming that I'd had one,) a normal and ordinary and decent woman like most others back home. Do we really want celebrity Commies for leaders instead? This just ain't right.
Full Story Here.Earlier this year, in the face of strong public opposition, Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales declared that he would stage a referendum to have the country’s constitutional term limits law overturned, thereby allowing him to remain indefinitely in power. The people of Honduras had adopted the single, four-year--term limit as part of their Constitution in January of 1982. Significantly, the term limits provision is one of only eight “firm articles,” out of 375. By law, cannot be amended.
The Supreme Court of Honduras declared the Zelaya referendum unconstitutional, his own Liberal Party came out in strong opposition, and the public overwhelmingly opposed his power grab. Despite this, Zelaya, a leftwing politician with strong ties to Cuba’s Castro and Venezuela’s Chavez, scheduled the referendum for Sunday, June 28. At midnight, Wednesday, June 24, the strong-arm president gave a televised speech accusing his opposition of promoting “destabilization and chaos” by attempting to thwart his unconstitutional referendum.
As the situation in Honduras continued to deteriorate, the Zelaya’s attorney general called for his ouster; his Defense Minister resigned; he fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for stating that he would refuse to send out troops to put down public protests; the chiefs of the army, navy, and air force resigned; and the country’s Supreme Court ordered the nation’s army and police not to support the unconstitutional referendum.
Through all of this, Barack Obama abetted the Zelaya power grab through his calculated silence....
Obama's not the only one to give the people of Honduras a rough ride: the S.G. of the U.N. is in on it too. He's with Zelaya today flying in to help the past president reclaim his lost spot. Who? This guy, standing up for Zelaya, like Obama's doing.
The U.N. General Assembly president accused the United States on Tuesday of “demonizing” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the latest blast against Washington by the former Nicaraguan official.“I don’t think anyone can doubt that in our part of the world, concretely here … Ahmadinejad has been demonized,” Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann told a news conference.
…
D’Escoto said that “the United States has been in the business of the demonization of people from (for)ever,” but had “canonized” former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza and former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.“And then we hear terrible things about Ahmadinejad,” D’Escoto said at the news conference on a recent trip to Syria, Finland, China, Bahrain, Switzerland and Iran to promote a U.N. conference in June on the world financial crisis.
D’Escoto said there had been “a big ado,” including protest letters written to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, when he went to a New York meeting attended by Ahmadinejad during the annual General Assembly summit last September. He did not say who had written the letters.
He said the “demonization” contrasted with the “great respect” in which Iran was held by its neighbors for hosting some 3 million refugees from Afghanistan.
D’Escoto also doesn’t want mass-murderer Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir busted because it would be “racist,”
He said it would “deepen a perception that international justice is racist.”
While he was at it, D’Escoto defends his statement accusing Israel of apartheid towards Palestinians because Jimmy Carter said it first.
http://faustasblog.com/?tag=Obama can nod and wink at Amadinejed, and D'Escoto can schmooze with him too. One big happy family.
Obama officials say talks with Iran still possible.
By PHILIP ELLIOTT The Associated Press
Sunday, June 28, 2009; 6:57 PM
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is open to discussions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions despite protests questioning the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, U.S. officials said Sunday.
Ahmadinejad has accused the West of stoking unrest, singling out Britain and the United States for allegations of meddling. Last week, Iran expelled two British diplomats, and Britain responded in kind. Iran, which detained nine British Embassy employees Saturday before releasing four, has said it's considering downgrading diplomatic ties with Britain.
The U.S. has not had diplomatic relations with Tehran since the aftermath of the Iranian revolution in 1979. On Saturday, Ahmadinejad said he would make the U.S. regret its criticism of the postelection crackdown and said the "mask has been removed" from Obama's efforts to improve relations.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday that Ahmadinejad is falling back on his government's usual strategy of blaming the West and the United States in particular for its internal problems.
"This is a profound moment of change. And what Ahmadinejad says to try to change the subject is, frankly, not going to work in the current context, because the people understand that the United States has not been meddling in their internal affairs," she said.
The legitimacy of the government, while questioned by the people of Iran, is not the critical issue for the U.S. goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear capability, Rice said.
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Claudia Rosett has some good insight into the news from Honduras, particularly the Sandinista thug now in charge fo the U.N. Here's a bit of her piece, link to follow:
Zelaya — according to the AP – is traveling in a Venezuelan jet. And accompanying him is the last thing Honduras, or any other other embattled democracy needs: The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockman.D’Escoto sums up just about everything wrong with the United Nations. As head of the 192-member-state General Assembly for its 2008-2009 session, he has been empowered to swan around the world, swaddled in the UN flag and purporting to speak for the poor, the oppressed, and the “international community.” In truth, d”Escoto is a Nicaraguan Sandinista retread, oozing hard-left dogma, praising some of the world’s worst despotisms and agitating from his plush UN offices in midtown Manhattan for massive transfers of wealth from the world’s leading democracies to his pals in tyrants’ cockpits of places such as Iran.
I mention Iran in particular because d’Escoto made a five-day visit there in March, with his expenses apparently paid by the Iranian government. He returned to New York to hold a press conference trashing free countries such as the U.S., and praising Iran’s regime as one enjoying “great respect.” For more detail, here’s a link to my column at the time for Forbes.com , covering D’Escoto’s performance on that occasion.
[d'Escoto embracing Ahmadinejad at the UN]D’Escoto took special pains to denounce the U.S. for having “demonized” his buddy, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – whose rigged “relection” as president on June 12th, as we all know, has inspired massive protests inside Iran itself.
Wielding the credentials of president of the UN General Assembly, D’Escoto enjoys the pernicious position of being a prominent official who is responsible in theory to everyone, but in practice is accountable to almost no one — while serving at the pleasure of a General Assembly which is dominated by unfree states. The GA’s most powerful voting bloc is the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, which overlaps with the so-called Group of 77 — a UN caucus organization which actually includes 130 members, who chose as their chairman for 2009 … wait for it… Sudan. That’s the kind of crowd behind d’Escoto.
Nicely written piece. Read it all here: http://pajamasmedia.com/
And who is this winner?
Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, M.M., born in Los Angeles[1] on February 5, 1933, is a Nicaraguan diplomat, politician and Catholic priest.[2] He is the current President of the United Nations General Assembly; taking up his one year term in September 2008 and presiding over the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.More, if you can stomach it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
D'Escoto was ordained a Roman Catholic priest for the Maryknoll congregation, before engaging in politics. He was a key figure in the founding of the Maryknoll imprint, Orbis Books, in 1970, and was an official with the World Council of Churches. As an adherent of liberation theology, he secretly joined the Sandinistas.
He served as foreign minister in Daniel Ortega's FSLN government from 1979 to 1990. ... While foreign minister, he received the Lenin Peace Prize for 1985-6....
[Elected to head the U.N.] D'Escoto designated[13] 15 senior advisers : Brother David Andrews CSC (USA), Ms. Maude Barlow (Canada), Mr. Mohammed Bedjaoui (Algeria), Mr. Leonardo Boff (Brazil), Mr. Kevin Cahill (USA), Mr. François Houtart (Belgium), Mr. Noam Chomsky (USA), Mr. Ramsey Clark (USA), Mr. Richard Falk (USA), Mr. Michael Kennedy (USA), Ms. Eleonora Kennedy (USA), Mr. Olivier De Schutter (Belgium), Mr. Joseph Stiglitz (USA), Sir John E. Sulston (UK), Mr. Howard Zinn (USA).
UN Watch has this on the "special advisors":
And now this: UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, former Nicaraguan FM and unrepentant Sandinista, has named a rogues’ gallery of anti-Western crackpots and 9/11 conspiracy theorists as his “Special Senior Advisors.” The indefatigable Matt Lee of Inner City Press has the story here.Now advising the head of the UN’s parliament are Professor Richard Falk, cheerleader for the theory that 9/11 was an inside job; Ramsey Clark, tool of left-wing cultists who defend Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Rwandan torturers as anti-imperialist heroes, and Noam Chomsky, the anti-American guru who lends his name to Holocaust deniers. ...
http://blog.unwatch.org/?cat=
[As Ralph Waldo] Emerson (1803 - 1882) sagely noted, every hero becomes a bore at last. The danger for the celebrity entertainer Barack Obama may lie not so much in his inane and perfectly commonplace juvenile politics, i.e. his "liberalism," as in the fact that he is beginning to bore the audience.Teleologicus, Jun 30, 05:47 AM at: http://www.americanthinker.
When the audience becomes bored by its heroes it begins to lust for something new - and that something new can always become the horrific spectacle of sudden fall and disintegration. It's all show biz after all - and the show must go on.
Sarah Palin is like my mother, (assuming that I'd had one,) a normal and ordinary and decent woman like most others back home. Do we really want celebrity Commies for leaders instead? This just ain't right.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Fourth of July Palinism.
Don't tread on us.
[T]he Gadsden Flag "the most common symbol displayed by right wing terrorist organizations."
What is America?
When I was younger, America was a nation, the best on Earth, home of the brave and the land of the free, my home, a great place. Today I'm sick at the thought of it. Our natural president, Sarah Palin, is subject to insane hate-campaigns.
Our current office-holder bows down to foreign kings who set up terrorist acts against our people and our nation; he glad-hands drug-dealing, terrorist supporting Banana Republic dictators; schmoozes with Caribbean Communists; plays Stepin Fetchit like a second-rate warm-up comedy act for a stripper on the European stage; and bellies to the bar to slag his family in the hope of a few coins dropped his way for amusing the town hoods by way of sucking jihadis at Cairo. Our official leader blows off dying kids battling for democracy in Iran and blows Latino thugs in the the hope of gaining a wad or two by dumping on Hondurans. The man is facing hondos of his own. All down. This scum-bag is finished. In six months he's made many of us hate our own government more than we've ever hated anything else in life. He's not America. He's the end of the fasces.
Sarah Palin is the beginning of the renewal of America's beautiful Revolution. Four years from now it'll be long past time for many American citizenship-holders to leave. They won't have anything worth staying for anyway, but they'll have many good reasons to go. They'll be so deeply hated they won't be safe staying. Middle-class people will visit them and give them the belated message that America is for free people, that our nation is independent, that we live our own lives and the government is going to shrink to minimal. Maybe Sarah Palin will take office. If not, there will still be a palin nation for the president who comes.
The Greek word palin, as many must know now, means "return." Yes, we will return our nation to its origins, renewed and more beautiful than before. The intoxicated losers in the house of our nation today will find a reckoning coming. They'll find themselves held responsible for the damage when the parental people return. This party won't last. Then we'll rebuild.
N.B. Left hate-graphics: http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/06/wonkette-goes-after-trig-palin-again.html
N.B.: [A] Department of Homeland Security report, "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment"
[T]he Gadsden Flag "the most common symbol displayed by right wing terrorist organizations."
What is America?
When I was younger, America was a nation, the best on Earth, home of the brave and the land of the free, my home, a great place. Today I'm sick at the thought of it. Our natural president, Sarah Palin, is subject to insane hate-campaigns.
Our current office-holder bows down to foreign kings who set up terrorist acts against our people and our nation; he glad-hands drug-dealing, terrorist supporting Banana Republic dictators; schmoozes with Caribbean Communists; plays Stepin Fetchit like a second-rate warm-up comedy act for a stripper on the European stage; and bellies to the bar to slag his family in the hope of a few coins dropped his way for amusing the town hoods by way of sucking jihadis at Cairo. Our official leader blows off dying kids battling for democracy in Iran and blows Latino thugs in the the hope of gaining a wad or two by dumping on Hondurans. The man is facing hondos of his own. All down. This scum-bag is finished. In six months he's made many of us hate our own government more than we've ever hated anything else in life. He's not America. He's the end of the fasces.
Sarah Palin is the beginning of the renewal of America's beautiful Revolution. Four years from now it'll be long past time for many American citizenship-holders to leave. They won't have anything worth staying for anyway, but they'll have many good reasons to go. They'll be so deeply hated they won't be safe staying. Middle-class people will visit them and give them the belated message that America is for free people, that our nation is independent, that we live our own lives and the government is going to shrink to minimal. Maybe Sarah Palin will take office. If not, there will still be a palin nation for the president who comes.
The Greek word palin, as many must know now, means "return." Yes, we will return our nation to its origins, renewed and more beautiful than before. The intoxicated losers in the house of our nation today will find a reckoning coming. They'll find themselves held responsible for the damage when the parental people return. This party won't last. Then we'll rebuild.
Sarah Palin is the America that's going to come back to bite the Left. Our country. Don't tread on it.The Gadsden Flag has been used throughout modern politics as a symbol of disagreement with the current governmment. This flag was most notably used during the Tea Party protests of 2009. The flag is often associated with the Right of revolution.
This current use of the flag has caught the government's attention.... Ironically, some authorities now label the Gadsden flag as "Extremist" .... Reports from Louisiana say that a man was detained by police for driving with a "Don't Tread on Me" bumper sticker on his vehicle.[3] A 2009 unclassified report distributed by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) to Missouri law enforcement called the Gadsden Flag "the most common symbol displayed by right wing terrorist."[4]
N.B. Left hate-graphics: http://legalinsurrection.
N.B.: [A] Department of Homeland Security report, "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment"
Friday, July 03, 2009
A Blind Man Teaches How To See
A ray of light for a dark world, through the eyes of a blind man who gets to see his wife for the first time: "When I found out there was a chance I would get my sight back the first person I wanted to see was her."
"The doctors took the bandages off and it was like looking through water and then I saw this figure and it was her," he said today.The article in the Daily Mail carries much detail on the remarkable operation that restored sight to the former builder: amazingly, he owes his renewed vision to a tooth implanted into his eye!
"She's wonderful and lovely. It was unbelievable to see her for the first time."
...
"I feel fantastic getting my sight back,' he said. 'I can't really describe it -- it's beyond words. I was blind for 12 years and when my sight came back everything had changed.
...
"Getting my sight back has changed my life. It is such a precious gift and you don't really appreciate it until it is taken away.
"I have been so fortunate that my sight has been returned. I find it such a simple pleasure being able to see what is going on in the world."
The process requires a living tooth as an implant because doctors suggest there are chances the eye would reject a plastic equivalent.
So a canine - which is the best option due to its shape and size - was taken out of Mr Jones' mouth.
A patch of skin is then taken from the inside of the cheek and placed in the eye for two months, where it gradually acquires its own blood supply.
The tooth segment is finally transplanted into the eye socket. The flap of grafted skin is then partially lifted from the eye and placed over its new sturdy base.
Finally, surgeons cut a hole in the grafted cornea to let light through.
As incredible an account as this story is, it still seems like there's a book's worth of drama left unexplored here: how did the blinded builder meet the woman who became his wife? How does she feel about suddenly being seen by her beloved husband? What was it like to look into her eyes for the first time, and to see her looking at him? He's in a position to dare to describe the most joyous side to the human experience: what it's like to experience the love we can summon for one another.
Clouded as our lives tend to be by tragedy and suffering, it takes an act of will to continue to see through all that misery to the splendor our world also has to offer. When our heart aches from seeing good men suffer, when our soul cries in despair from the weight of the injustice suffocating our earthly existence, we need the humble perceptions of the Mr. Jones' of the world as much as we need food and drink; if ever anyone could make a difference through a blog, and hope to teach today's cynics how to look a second time at what's really going on around them, it's this middle-aged husband from south Yorkshire.
For all the power of our language, no mere words alone can faithfully paint a proper picture of what it means to live life; presumably this is why we have stories. After all, what does it mean to say that life is worth living, what does it amount to, to merely say that the secret path to finding Happiness is to search for the Good, when through stories like this one, we can show it.
And, hopefully, through such stories we pessimists can come to appreciate the great garden of wonder we still get to walk through, no matter our difficulties; where even a simple rock can offer a world of detail to marvel over, providing we leave ourselves open to observing it all.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
For a Canada in which we may once again freely measure, represent, debate and enact a shared reality
It's "Canada Day", and while I have not made much time recently for blogging, this will soon change. But to that end, maybe it's time for a little stock taking. Where are we, as a nation, going, given the political culture of this country? A recent Mark Steyn piece provides a useful glimpse, if only for a moment on a beautiful day not to be completely wasted by our culture's political insanities: Blazing Cat Fur: Hey Jennifer Lynch- Coming to a newstand near you....Canada, it seems, has become a country where the policing of those who might say things mildly critical of the reigning religion are told to shut up, or else lose their jobs, reputation, etc. It's a country where parliamentarians cannot respond rationally - they cannot even begin to recognize - arguments that "human rights" commissions are actually destroyers not defenders of real human rights.
I could and will in future expand on the Gnostic religion that is so afraid of hearing criticism, or even alternative conceptualizations, of its world view - lest the Gnostic's trips into an unreality where his Utopian desires must not, or so his faith tells him, be obscured by the lesser men who have come before him, be indeed exposed to some of the resistant facts of a fallen world that is not and cannot be as our Messianic or Maternal visions would remake it.
But for the moment, for those who want to take up the question seriously, I will take my time for reflection and point you towards Tom Bertonneau's latest in the Brussels Journal, for he so ably takes up the task of elucidating the Gnostic mentality, its hysterical reactions to criticism, to those whose common sense presents stumbling blocks to the great visionaries. He takes us further in understanding the Gnostic's need for a puritanical speech code.But, as Bertonneau concludes, a refusal of a political religion to come to terms with contrary realities cannot last forever. The world, as it actually is, wins out in the end. So this period in our national history may be coming to some kind of collapse into a future we cannot know and which we must prepare ourselves to meet, should we wish to live in a nation bound by covenants and not just one or another's dark and destructive will to power:
One can predict, generally, that the radical spasm through which Europe and North America are now passing will eventually remit. De-creation can only be called creation for so long before the fraud becomes undeniable and the masses become disenchanted with their formerly charismatic leaders....a thought with which to marshal our resolve on this Dominion Day.
The trouble for all of us is that, in the meantime, in “the weird, ghostly atmosphere of a lunatic asylum,” as Voegelin writes, the agitating elites can wreak enormous harm.
[...]
Quite apart from election results, the extremism and intolerance of those currently in power polarizes the society increasingly, day by day, with no terminus of the process in sight; nor will their polarizing activities cease, should they lose their majority. Gnostic propaganda is nowadays organized as a colossal communications-network. Certainly American society is therefore in the rhetorical phase of a civil war, or perhaps in the policy phase, now that liberals have the votes to justify their schemes and do as they please. Even if the USA did not advance to some kind of actual civil war, the damage to civic institutions and to trust among people will have been, as it already is, profound and lasting.
One might agree with Voegelin, who was writing sixty years ago, that, “the end of the Gnostic dream is perhaps closer at hand than one ordinarily would assume.” But this need not mean that the aftermath will resemble the status quo ante, or be in any way familiar to those who, during the period of nightmare, held fast to the truth of the soul.
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