If I were to ask you, readers of a certain age, to think of rock music’s all-time greatest guitarists, I have a feeling that the thirty-three-year-old Derek Trucks might not be among the pantheon that swims into view.
He should be, though. To get an idea why, have a look here.
In this endless, eye-gouging, brass-knuckled, dung-flecked presidential campaign, we’ve been hearing an awful lot of noise from the Obama machine about an imaginary conservative “war on women”. (It’s calumnious rubbish, of course.)
On the the other hand, there is indeed one resolutely committed ideological faction in this world that really is waging a relentless war on what we in the West consider to be basic women’s rights, every chance it gets. It’s doctrinaire Islam.
It was with some amusement, then (though not surprise) that I ran across this:
Does the libidinous Sandra Fluke, who will also be speaking at the Democratic convention, really believe that these people are her allies? That Imam Siraj Mahhaj, who has openly called for the replacement of the United States Constuitution with a caliphate, is going to join her crusade for abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and taxpayer-subsidized contraception?
What the hell are these people smoking?
As we’ve all heard by now, the astronaut Neil Armstrong died last week. For the 43 years following his moonwalk, an achievement that he could surely have parlayed into wealth and glittering fame, the self-effacing Armstrong chose instead to lived a quiet life of teaching and farming. (In contrast, the pathologically narcissistic Barack Obama — the President, by the way, who redefined NASA’s “foremost” mission to be Muslim outreach — chose to memorialize Mr. Armstrong with a picture of himself.)
The manned flight to the surface of the Moon and back was one of our people’s, and indeed mankind’s, greatest triumphs — but it might have gone otherwise. Here is the speech that William Safire had prepared for the President to read if that sorrowful circumstance had come to pass.
P.S. More on Neil Armstrong here.
Here’s a nifty animation illustrating the spread of Indo-Euopean langauges.
As the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once explained, “Democracy is like a train. We shall get out when we arrive at the station we want.”
That train seems to be moving along briskly in Egypt, where last week the democratically elected President, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, ousted the Mubarak-era leadership of the armed forces, clearing the way for the ascension of the Ikhwan’s man, General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. As we noted here, this resolves the dissonance that has existed between the civilian government and the armed forces since the much-ballyhooed “Arab Spring” began to bloom in Egypt in early 2011.
Now, President Morsi seems to be nearing his station. In today’s NightWatch newsletter, John McCreary explains:
Egypt: President Mursi intervened to release a newspaper editor jailed for insulting the President him on Thursday, issuing a law for the first time since he assumed legislative powers earlier this month. President Mohammed Mursi’s ban on detention for journalists accused of publishing-related offenses overrides a court decision earlier in the day ordering newspaper editor Islam Afifi to remain in prison pending trial in September.
Comment: In this instance Mursi took action that the international media applauds. The plaudits will ignore that he acted in the same authoritarian fashion as Mubarak, overriding the existing law; legislating his own; and ignoring a decision of the courts who were ruling on the existing law.
His action betrays an inclination to undermine other institutions of government to burnish his public image as he sees fit, governing in precisely the same way as his predecessor. This is dictatorship, not democracy. When the ends justify the means, there is no need for elected government or a balance of power between branches of government. That is what Mursi demonstrated today.
Last year I wrote:
If you look at any vigorous society in its prime, you see a healthy balance between rights and privileges. When either grows too much at the expense of the other, a nation declines: on the one hand toward impotent mediocrity, on the other into tyranny.
This is the latter case. What we in the West see as a fundamental right — the freedom of the press — has in Egypt now become a privilege, to be granted or denied at the whim of the sovereign.
And a pretty brilliant one too, I think: his new album will not be recorded at all, but will be published only as sheet music. It’s up to the fans to render it as they see fit.
Here’s a delightfully un-PC item about Mitt Romney, by NRO’s Kevin D. Williamson, that’s sure to push all the right buttons. (As I write, it’s already clear from a quick survey of Twitter that those buttons have been pushed en masse.) It begins:
What do women want? The conventional biological wisdom is that men select mates for fertility, while women select for status — thus the commonness of younger women’s pairing with well-established older men but the rarity of the converse. The Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher model is an exception — the only 40-year-old woman Jack Nicholson has ever seen naked is Kathy Bates in that horrific hot-tub scene. Age is cruel to women, and subordination is cruel to men. Ellen Kullman is a very pretty woman, but at 56 years of age she probably would not turn a lot of heads in a college bar, and the fact that she is the chairman and CEO of Dupont isn’t going to change that.
It’s a good thing Mitt Romney doesn’t hang out in college bars.
You want off-the-charts status? Check out the curriculum vitae of one Willard M. Romney: $200 million in the bank (and a hell of a lot more if he didn’t give so much away), apex alpha executive, CEO, chairman of the board, governor, bishop, boss of everything he’s ever touched. Son of the same, father of more. It is a curious scientific fact (explained in evolutionary biology by the Trivers-Willard hypothesis — Willard, notice) that high-status animals tend to have more male offspring than female offspring, which holds true across many species, from red deer to mink to Homo sap. The offspring of rich families are statistically biased in favor of sons — the children of the general population are 51 percent male and 49 percent female, but the children of the Forbes billionaire list are 60 percent male. Have a gander at that Romney family picture: five sons, zero daughters. Romney has 18 grandchildren, and they exceed a 2:1 ratio of grandsons to granddaughters (13:5). When they go to church at their summer-vacation home, the Romney clan makes up a third of the congregation. He is basically a tribal chieftain.
Professor Obama? Two daughters. May as well give the guy a cardigan. And fallopian tubes.
From an evolutionary point of view, Mitt Romney should get 100 percent of the female vote. All of it. He should get Michelle Obama’s vote.
Read the rest here.
As planned, I’ve hardly written anything here for a couple of weeks now. The lovely Nina and I are sequestered at our modest hilltop dacha here in the Outer Cape, and after spending two or three long days each week writing code (thank goodness for telecommuting!) the last thing I’ve felt like doing is to spend more time at the computer while everyone else is out lolling on the beach, swimming in the ponds, eating, drinking, and generally enjoying one another’s company in one of the nicest places on Earth.
The world is certainly going to hell as usual, but I’m confident it will still be going to hell a couple of weeks from now, when the last few weeks of summer are over. Till then, I think a “miscellany of brief items” will have to do.
So: here’s a piquant item from Thomas Sowell, and a parking-garage door that sounds like Miles Davis. I’m off for some chowder.
Another quick link: I stumbled across a collection of photos by someone named “Faryndale”, and I think they’re mighty good. Have a look.
Okay, readers of a certain age: have a look at this.
Closed-door meetings between Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton today…
I find it hard to believe that Ms. Clinton would accept Mr. Biden’s place on the ticket, but we’ll just have to see.
Of course, they might just be talking about, oh, foreign policy, or something, I guess. [snicker]
What do you think, folks — will Joe Biden, who just seems to get battier and battier, be on the ticket in November?
Interesting item here: as calls to disarm the citizenry grow louder, why is the National Weather Service stocking up on .40-caliber jacketed hollow-point amunition?
Here’s the damage to the U.S.S. Porter, in case you were wondering.
Just stood in the checkout line at the Wellfleet general store with Noam Chomsky.
We didn’t chat.
The inevitable showdown between the Brotherhood and the military in Egypt has arrived: Mohamed Morsi has sacked generals Tantawi and Anan.
The military were the last bastion against the complete Islamization of Egypt, and were the real managers of the national convulsion that naifs in the West called the “Facebook revolution”. Now the newly elected Islamist president calls them to heel. Will they stand down peacefully?
Place your bets!
So! Paul Ryan it is. Good choice, I think. It tilts the centrist Romney’s ticket toward fiscal conservatism, and makes the choice in November crystal-clear.
Also: can’t wait for the Ryan – Biden debates!
Last night on Twitter, just after the choice was “leaked”, Jonah Goldberg tweeted:
“Joe Biden just soiled himself.”
Will Antonin tweeted back:
“Wait till he hears about the Ryan pick!”
Are you a transgendered Wiccan in a stable polyamorous relationship? Got a craving for a juicy, crispy, perfectly seasoned chicken sandwich, but would sooner camp out for Donny Osmond tickets than darken the door of a Chick-fil-a?
Well, sir or madam, today’s your lucky day. Have a look here.
Here’s a stunning 360-degree panorama from Mars, courtesy of the rover Opportunity.
With a hat tip to reader JK:
In 1970, a Zambia-based nun named Sister Mary Jucunda wrote to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then-associate director of science at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in response to his ongoing research into a piloted mission to Mars. Specifically, she asked how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on such a project at a time when so many children were starving on Earth.
Stuhlinger soon sent the following letter of explanation to Sister Jucunda, along with a copy of “Earthrise,” the iconic photograph of Earth taken in 1968 by astronaut William Anders, from the Moon (also embedded in the transcript). His thoughtful reply was later published by NASA, and titled, “Why Explore Space?”
Read it here.
Two reasons that Dr. Stuhlinger left out:
1) Exploring, expanding, climbing, conquering is just what we do.
2) There’s a fortune to be made out there!
“Such is the nature of man,
that for your first gift — he prostrates himself;
for your second — kisses your hand;
for the third — fawns;
for the fourth — just nods his head once;
for the fifth — becomes too familiar;
for the sixth — insults you;
and for the seventh — sues you because he was not given enough.”
Gurdjieff, All and Everything, Third Series, p. 56
Here’s a clever graphic presentation by the Times putting all the Olympic 100-meter winners since 1896 in the same race.
NRO posted a good piece by Yuval Levin today, on competing views of the mediating layer that stands between the individual and the State.
Here.
I like this: our Reconnaissance orbiter snapped a picture of Curiosity descending to Mars last night.
Here.
“Give me the razor, Jim,” said Turkle, his eyes glittering coldly.
“Not until you drop that fish,” I told him, letting the strop slip from my hand. I heard it slap dully against the titanium frame. The… thing on the bench began to stir.
One chance, I thought to myself. I’ll get one chance.
“Jesus Christ, you guys! Are you fucking crazy? You’re freaking me out here,” said Cnastibon, his zoolm reddened with alarm.
Turkle barely moved. Cnastibon gurgled, then slumped to the floor, cut almost in half.
“Give me the razor, Jim.”
“Not until you drop that fish.”
Have a look at this remarkable sculpture by Neil Dawson, mounted on a hilltop in New Zealand.
More views of it here.
It’s August, and it’s hot and sticky, even here in the Outer Cape. Under these conditions, my little grey cells are roused to action with the greatest reluctance, and even then give only second-rate service. So for the next few weeks substantial posts may be sporadic at best; all I’m likely to have on offer much of the time will be things like The Only Known Footage of Mark Twain.
Things having gone so well elsewhere in the region, it appears we have decided to throw our weight behind the Syrian rebels.
Will this thing replace the mouse, do you think?
I’m skeptical. It’s a great accessory, but one important feature of using a mouse is that one can rest one’s hand on the desk. Holding your arms up all day to use your computer would be tiring, I think.
Yet another appalling story of Federal bullying, this time courtesy of our e-pal David Duff.
Here.
In response to a recent post featuring Victor Davis Hanson’s series of essays on the decline of civilized life in California’s Central Valley, a reader complained about all this pessimistic “conservative porn”.
Here, then, is Dr. Hanson showing some optimism. Perhaps readers seeing this will be inclined to take his reporting from Mexifornia more seriously.
You’ve seen those ads for the Most Interesting Man In The World, I’m sure.
Here’s someone who I think could give him a run for his money.
Victor Davis Hanson’s family has lived for generations in the agricultural heartland of California — an area that is now, after decades of ruinously misguided policymaking, in the vanguard of America’s decline into third-world decrepitude. Nobody tells this dismal story better than Dr. Hanson does in his periodic dispatches. His latest is here (with thanks to TBH for the link).
An excerpt:
Our culprit out here was not the Bomb (and remember, Hiroshima looks a lot better today than does Detroit, despite the inverse in 1945). The condition is instead brought on by a perfect storm of events that have shred the veneer of sophisticated civilization. Add up the causes. One was the destruction of the California rural middle class. Manufacturing jobs, small family farms, and new businesses disappeared due to globalization, high taxes, and new regulations. A pyramidal society followed of a few absentee land barons and corporate grandees, and a mass of those on entitlements or working for government or employed at low-skilled service jobs. The guy with a viable 60 acres of almonds ceased to exist.
Illegal immigration did its share. No society can successfully absorb some 6-7 million illegal aliens, in less than two decades, the vast majority without English, legality, or education from the poorer provinces of Mexico, the arrivals subsidized by state entitlements while sending billions in remittances back to Mexico ”” all in a politicized climate where dissent is demonized as racism. This state of affairs is especially true when the host has given up on assimilation, integration, the melting pot, and basic requirements of lawful citizenship.
Terrible governance was also a culprit, in the sense that the state worked like a lottery: those lucky enough by hook or by crook to get a state job thereby landed a bonanza of high wages, good benefits, no accountability, and rich pensions that eventually almost broke the larger and less well-compensated general society. When I see hordes of Highway Patrolmen writing tickets in a way they did not before 2008, I assume that these are revenue-based, not safety-based, protocols ”” a little added fiscal insurance that pensions and benefits will not be cut.
A coarsening of popular culture ”” a nationwide phenomenon ”” was intensified, as it always is, in California. The internet, video games, and modern pop culture translated into a generation of youth that did not know the value of hard work or a weekend hike in the Sierra. They didn’t learn how to open a good history book or poem, much less acquire even basic skills such as mowing the lawn or hammering a nail. But California’s Generation X did know that they were “somebody’ whom teachers and officials dared not reprimand, punish, prosecute, or otherwise pass judgment on for their anti-social behavior. Add all that up with a whiny, pampered, influential elite on the coast that was more worried about wind power, gay marriage, ending plastic bags in the grocery stores ”” and, well, you get the present-day Road Warrior culture of California.
When you’re done with Dr. Hanson’s piece, read this related item, from Kevin D. Williamson.
Patrick Buchanan explains, clearly and sharply, why the GOP will die, a witless suicide.
Here.
I haven’t commented on the Chick-fil-A affray — so much creeping totalitarianism, so little time! — but Mark Steyn has, and you can read it here.
This is a horrible story, and a frightening glimpse of the road ahead. To his credit, Michael Bloomberg publicly refused to join the mayors of Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco in their Two Minutes’ Hate.
