LinknZona: One Christmas During the Korean War
Really touching.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Gut Rumbles
Gut Rumbles: "I knew that!!! RIGT ON ACIDMAN!!!!
Originally published June 2, 2004
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Wacko-environmentalists are religious freaks, every bit as obsessed and misguided as Islamic extremists. Those people give me the creeps.
Environmental alarmism/hysteria is a fascinating psychological phenomenon. It bears many traces of ancient myth and similarities to religious mania. It also has close ties with that most powerful, and delusive, of all political religions: socialism.
Close ties to socialism? I would call it more than that. Environmentalism is anti-individual, anti-private property, anti-capitalist and anti-progress. Environmentalists don't care how many people die because of their idiotic cause. In fact, they would be the first ones to throw virgins into a volcano to please the appetite of Gaia. They are that goddam superstitious and that goddam crazy.
They won't be happy until we all freeze to death in the dark."
Originally published June 2, 2004
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Wacko-environmentalists are religious freaks, every bit as obsessed and misguided as Islamic extremists. Those people give me the creeps.
Environmental alarmism/hysteria is a fascinating psychological phenomenon. It bears many traces of ancient myth and similarities to religious mania. It also has close ties with that most powerful, and delusive, of all political religions: socialism.
Close ties to socialism? I would call it more than that. Environmentalism is anti-individual, anti-private property, anti-capitalist and anti-progress. Environmentalists don't care how many people die because of their idiotic cause. In fact, they would be the first ones to throw virgins into a volcano to please the appetite of Gaia. They are that goddam superstitious and that goddam crazy.
They won't be happy until we all freeze to death in the dark."
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Thursday, November 23, 2006
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS: Tisquantum
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS: TisquantumSquanto
Tisquantum
That's "Squanto's" real name, in Algonquian. Tisquantum. The shortening can be forgiven, of course. Algonquian rivals ancient Elamite for its opaqueness. Nquitpausuckowashawmen. No, I've not lapsed into glossolalia. That's how Squanto would have said, "There are a hundred of us." Tashuckqunne cummauchenaumiz? "How long have you been sick?" Yep. Tough language.
Of course Squanto could have numbered his tribe in English -- and in Spanish. Alas, there were not a hundred Patuxets left -- his people: all had perished, to smallpox. He alone survived, like some servant of Job -- as indeed he was, to the hardpressed pilgrims. As for how long Squanto was sick, sudden fever took him the year after he had settled with his new tribe of pilgrims.
Well, he must have been used to being snatched away. He wasn’t kidnapped just once, you understand. In 1605, one George Weymouth whisked him away to England -- whether kidnapped or volunteered, history does not record. For untold years he labored -- well, eight or nine -- until returning to America in 1613 as translator for none other than John Smith. Set free as reward for his service, Squanto returned to his own tribe, only to be enslaved and taken to Spain -- kidnapped in 1614 by Thomas Hunt, a lieutenant of Captain Smith. He escaped to London where he remained until 1619 (interupted by one odd intermission in Newfoundland), then he joined an expedition to America. There he found his family and tribe all wiped out.
Providence? To find an English-speaking Indian wandering the coast at just the right time to save the Pilgrims? Well, yes. But how many other Squantos have wandered the earth, who never found their mission? -- Jonahs who made it to Tarshish?
To know one's purpose is something to be thankful about. Father, mother, friend -- and to bring light and love not only to those you care about but to the stranger -- well, this is something in which we might make our own providence. The rest of it -- being kidnapped and orphaned and dying young and such -- we count as beyond our understanding, and trust in God to resolve.
Much fiction will have crept into the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims. Of course. It's not that it wasn't a good enough story on its own. It's just that the reality is complex, and myths have a happy simplicity to them. The tales of childhood are for inspiring us to emulate an example of excellence ... since there are hardly any real examples of excellence ... or is that unworthy? It is a fact that having heroes who actually lived requires a degree of selective blindness on our part. We give importance to what is admirable, and choose not to see the flaws -- or at least to down-grade them. This is as it should be. If we saw the chamber of horrors that is the heart of every human, we'd never stop screaming.
So we have myths.
Is America everything it might be or that we wish it were? The question answers itself. The same holds when we inspect any ideal. There are no “ideals.” If they were real, they’d be “examples.” But part of living in the real world is understanding that it is hopelessly flawed. Well, not hopelessly. Fatally. Even in the face of the inevitable failure of our biology, though -- in the face of ultimate fatality, we need not be hopeless.
And so we have Thanksgiving. It has its own mythology, as does Christmas. But for all that there is the fiction of Santa, there is the reality of Jesus. And for all that the Hallmark and Rockwell images may very well be nothing but a happy conceit -- of convivial Indians supping in sumptuous abundance with the wayfarers from across the gray waves of the churning seas -- yet they have the reality of vivid dreams, that might be true, for all that daylight says otherwise.
The cherished dreams of our hearts have no guarantee of coming to pass. Every prayer of thanks must, must include a prayer of abject supplication, begging God that evil, or greater evil, should not strike us. Thus as a nation we take a day, a single day, collectively to call to mind the many blessing with which we have been blessed. We recall that it need not be so. We understand that who looks for perfection is a fool. We understand that who accepts the inspiration of a myth honors the daylight that the visions of night have promised.
Tisquantum
That's "Squanto's" real name, in Algonquian. Tisquantum. The shortening can be forgiven, of course. Algonquian rivals ancient Elamite for its opaqueness. Nquitpausuckowashawmen. No, I've not lapsed into glossolalia. That's how Squanto would have said, "There are a hundred of us." Tashuckqunne cummauchenaumiz? "How long have you been sick?" Yep. Tough language.
Of course Squanto could have numbered his tribe in English -- and in Spanish. Alas, there were not a hundred Patuxets left -- his people: all had perished, to smallpox. He alone survived, like some servant of Job -- as indeed he was, to the hardpressed pilgrims. As for how long Squanto was sick, sudden fever took him the year after he had settled with his new tribe of pilgrims.
Well, he must have been used to being snatched away. He wasn’t kidnapped just once, you understand. In 1605, one George Weymouth whisked him away to England -- whether kidnapped or volunteered, history does not record. For untold years he labored -- well, eight or nine -- until returning to America in 1613 as translator for none other than John Smith. Set free as reward for his service, Squanto returned to his own tribe, only to be enslaved and taken to Spain -- kidnapped in 1614 by Thomas Hunt, a lieutenant of Captain Smith. He escaped to London where he remained until 1619 (interupted by one odd intermission in Newfoundland), then he joined an expedition to America. There he found his family and tribe all wiped out.
Providence? To find an English-speaking Indian wandering the coast at just the right time to save the Pilgrims? Well, yes. But how many other Squantos have wandered the earth, who never found their mission? -- Jonahs who made it to Tarshish?
To know one's purpose is something to be thankful about. Father, mother, friend -- and to bring light and love not only to those you care about but to the stranger -- well, this is something in which we might make our own providence. The rest of it -- being kidnapped and orphaned and dying young and such -- we count as beyond our understanding, and trust in God to resolve.
Much fiction will have crept into the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims. Of course. It's not that it wasn't a good enough story on its own. It's just that the reality is complex, and myths have a happy simplicity to them. The tales of childhood are for inspiring us to emulate an example of excellence ... since there are hardly any real examples of excellence ... or is that unworthy? It is a fact that having heroes who actually lived requires a degree of selective blindness on our part. We give importance to what is admirable, and choose not to see the flaws -- or at least to down-grade them. This is as it should be. If we saw the chamber of horrors that is the heart of every human, we'd never stop screaming.
So we have myths.
Is America everything it might be or that we wish it were? The question answers itself. The same holds when we inspect any ideal. There are no “ideals.” If they were real, they’d be “examples.” But part of living in the real world is understanding that it is hopelessly flawed. Well, not hopelessly. Fatally. Even in the face of the inevitable failure of our biology, though -- in the face of ultimate fatality, we need not be hopeless.
And so we have Thanksgiving. It has its own mythology, as does Christmas. But for all that there is the fiction of Santa, there is the reality of Jesus. And for all that the Hallmark and Rockwell images may very well be nothing but a happy conceit -- of convivial Indians supping in sumptuous abundance with the wayfarers from across the gray waves of the churning seas -- yet they have the reality of vivid dreams, that might be true, for all that daylight says otherwise.
The cherished dreams of our hearts have no guarantee of coming to pass. Every prayer of thanks must, must include a prayer of abject supplication, begging God that evil, or greater evil, should not strike us. Thus as a nation we take a day, a single day, collectively to call to mind the many blessing with which we have been blessed. We recall that it need not be so. We understand that who looks for perfection is a fool. We understand that who accepts the inspiration of a myth honors the daylight that the visions of night have promised.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Emigre with a Digital Cluebat
Emigre with a Digital Cluebat: "Kids say the DARNDEST things
JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister.
After a while he asked: 'Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for
cold milk?'
MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was
so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, 'If you don't remember you
must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six.'
STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom goodnight. 'I love you so much,
that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window.'
BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a painkiller. She tried in
vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained
it was a childproof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with
wonder, the little girl asked: 'How does it know it's me?
SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. 'Please don't
give me this juice again,' she said, 'It makes my teeth cough.'
DI (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: 'How much do I
cost?'
MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and
kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: 'Why is he whispering in her mouth?'
JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: 'The man named
Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked
back and was turned to salt.' Concerned, James asked: 'What happened to the
flea?'
TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled
woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for awhile and then asked, 'Why
doesn't your skin fit your face?
The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget.... this particular Sunday
sermon...'Dear Lord,' the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. 'Without you, we are but dust.'
He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter (who was listening!) Leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little
girl voice, 'Mom, what is butt dust?'"
JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister.
After a while he asked: 'Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for
cold milk?'
MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was
so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, 'If you don't remember you
must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six.'
STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom goodnight. 'I love you so much,
that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window.'
BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a painkiller. She tried in
vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained
it was a childproof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with
wonder, the little girl asked: 'How does it know it's me?
SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. 'Please don't
give me this juice again,' she said, 'It makes my teeth cough.'
DI (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: 'How much do I
cost?'
MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and
kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: 'Why is he whispering in her mouth?'
JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: 'The man named
Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked
back and was turned to salt.' Concerned, James asked: 'What happened to the
flea?'
TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled
woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for awhile and then asked, 'Why
doesn't your skin fit your face?
The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget.... this particular Sunday
sermon...'Dear Lord,' the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. 'Without you, we are but dust.'
He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter (who was listening!) Leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little
girl voice, 'Mom, what is butt dust?'"
Saturday, May 27, 2006
The Official Reality Dot Appreciation Page
The Official Reality Dot Appreciation Page: "The Official Reality Dot Appreciation Page"
SFO Magazine Official Journal for Personal Investing in Stocks, Futures and Options
SFO Magazine Official Journal for Personal Investing in Stocks, Futures and Options: "What I Learned Trading in 2005
by: Thomas N. Bulkowski"
by: Thomas N. Bulkowski"
Yahoo! Mail - jdr1228@yahoo.com
Yahoo! Mail - jdr1228@yahoo.com: "Idle thoughts of a retiree's mind wandering...
...I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
...I had amnesia once -- or twice.
...I went to San Francisco. I found someone's heart. Now what?
...Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
...All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
...If the world was a logical place, men would be the ones who ride horses sidesaddle.
...What is a 'free' gift? Aren't all gifts free?
...They told me I was gullible... and I believed them.
...Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.
...Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.
...One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
...My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies.
...I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.
...The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
...How can there be self-help 'groups'?
...If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
...Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.
...Is it my imagination, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?"
...I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
...I had amnesia once -- or twice.
...I went to San Francisco. I found someone's heart. Now what?
...Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
...All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
...If the world was a logical place, men would be the ones who ride horses sidesaddle.
...What is a 'free' gift? Aren't all gifts free?
...They told me I was gullible... and I believed them.
...Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.
...Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.
...One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
...My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies.
...I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.
...The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
...How can there be self-help 'groups'?
...If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
...Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.
...Is it my imagination, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?"
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Something... and Half of Something: Guard Our Borders!
Something... and Half of Something: Guard Our Borders!: "A Cool Change
A Lady's Ruminations
A Tic In The Mind's Eye
Adam's Thoughts
Amber and Chaos
Amboy Times
American Daughter
Bear Creek Ledger
BobGriggs.com
Cao's Blog
Charming Just Charming
Church and State
Customer Servant
DeMediacratic Nation
E L Frederick
Euphoric Reality
Fort Wayne Libertarian Mike Sylvester
Freedom Folks
Gribbit's Word
Gun Toting Liberal*new!
Independent Conservative
Intergalactic Source of Truth
Jarhead's Firing Range
Kender's Musings
Life~Florida~Whatever
LomaAlta
Mensa Barbie Welcomes You
Morning Glory 2
Most Certainly Not
Mover Mike
Musings and Ramblings
NIF
Nova Townhall Blog
Ogre's Politics and Views*new!
Pamibe
Parrot Check
Part-Time Pundit
Politics, Parenting and Other Hazardous Pastimes
Publius Rendezvous
Ravings of a Mad Tech
Right As Usual
Right on Blog
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Right Wing Howler
Something and Half of Something
Stuck on Stupid
Subterfuge
Team Swap*new!
The Irate Nation
The Neo-Con Blogger
The Original Gobbleblog
The Right Track
Theodore's World
Third World County
TMH's Bacon Bits
Universe and Other Things
Vanishing American
Watchman's Words
Woman Honor Thyself"
A Lady's Ruminations
A Tic In The Mind's Eye
Adam's Thoughts
Amber and Chaos
Amboy Times
American Daughter
Bear Creek Ledger
BobGriggs.com
Cao's Blog
Charming Just Charming
Church and State
Customer Servant
DeMediacratic Nation
E L Frederick
Euphoric Reality
Fort Wayne Libertarian Mike Sylvester
Freedom Folks
Gribbit's Word
Gun Toting Liberal*new!
Independent Conservative
Intergalactic Source of Truth
Jarhead's Firing Range
Kender's Musings
Life~Florida~Whatever
LomaAlta
Mensa Barbie Welcomes You
Morning Glory 2
Most Certainly Not
Mover Mike
Musings and Ramblings
NIF
Nova Townhall Blog
Ogre's Politics and Views*new!
Pamibe
Parrot Check
Part-Time Pundit
Politics, Parenting and Other Hazardous Pastimes
Publius Rendezvous
Ravings of a Mad Tech
Right As Usual
Right on Blog
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Right Wing Howler
Something and Half of Something
Stuck on Stupid
Subterfuge
Team Swap*new!
The Irate Nation
The Neo-Con Blogger
The Original Gobbleblog
The Right Track
Theodore's World
Third World County
TMH's Bacon Bits
Universe and Other Things
Vanishing American
Watchman's Words
Woman Honor Thyself"
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century
Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century: "n other words, the greatest damage to the people of Chernobyl was caused by bad information. These people weren’t blighted by radiation so much as by terrifying but false information. We ought to ponder, for a minute, exactly what that implies. We demand strict controls on radiation because it is such a health hazard. But Chernobyl suggests that false information can be a health hazard as damaging as radiation. I am not saying radiation is not a threat. I am not saying Chernobyl was not a genuinely serious event."
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