2,996 people, whose only crime was to be about their lives on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Let us remember, and remember to teach our children (and theirs) about the examples of courage and character shown us that day.
And, to those who perpetrated the crime: Be assured, you haven't been forgotten by the citizens of this country.
Ask not for whom the drone buzzes.
It buzzes for you.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Selective Outrage
OK, so maybe Joe Wilson let his passion run ahead of his judgment.
But, Himself was lying. The Dems won't allow any means to enforce the exclusion of illegal aliens from the guv'mint health care scheme. And Joe knew it.
On the other hand, here we have a moment from 2005 when President Bush is telling the truth about the actuarial impossibility of Social Security, and the Democrats are heckling him.
For telling the truth.
Selective outrage, selective adulation.
If you're a conservative, keep your mouth shut in the presence of your 'betters'.
If you're a liberal, you can leave a girl to die of oxygen deprivation, live as a raging and abusive alcoholic, and be lionized.
OK, now I understand...
But, Himself was lying. The Dems won't allow any means to enforce the exclusion of illegal aliens from the guv'mint health care scheme. And Joe knew it.
On the other hand, here we have a moment from 2005 when President Bush is telling the truth about the actuarial impossibility of Social Security, and the Democrats are heckling him.
For telling the truth.
Selective outrage, selective adulation.
If you're a conservative, keep your mouth shut in the presence of your 'betters'.
If you're a liberal, you can leave a girl to die of oxygen deprivation, live as a raging and abusive alcoholic, and be lionized.
OK, now I understand...
Thursday, September 10, 2009
He Lies
Congressman Joe Wilson probably should not have shouted 'He Lies' during Himself's address last night. It was impolite and ill-timed. Not his best moment, but a very human one.
Best to leave that sort of tasteless behavior to the Democrats. You know, like evoking Chappaquidick Teddy's name at the end of a speech, to attempt emotional manipulation from beyond the grave. Like dummying up fake military documents to release two weeks before the 2004 election, and attempting to pass them off as genuine. Like jeering Republican presidents during State of the Union addresses. You know, that sort of stuff...
If a Senator from Massachusetts can abandon a young woman in a wrecked car to die slowly of oxygen deprivation, and still be forgiven and loved, we can perhaps cut MC Joe from South Carolina a wee bit of slack. He's not likely to do anything outrageous again, unlike certain Massachusetts senators were known to do.
'Cuz you see, Joe was right. Himself and the Democrats have no intention of including any means of verification or enforcement to bar illegal immigrants from fully participating in the coming government health care scheme.
The Democrat leadership have one basic difference of world-view from Normal People: Normal People believe that Words convey Meaning. People like the Clintons, Pelosi, Frank, Reid and BHO understand that Words convey whatever they wish them to convey at any given moment. Words are noises produced in order to get one's way in the world, nothing more, nothing less.
Without any enforcement mechanism included in a law, verbiage is just verbiage.
Himself is a lawyer, and knows that. He just counts on the Normal People to not notice.
Joe's a Normal Person, and when the President of The United States told a whopper, Joe lost his temper.
Joe was right.
He Lies.
Best to leave that sort of tasteless behavior to the Democrats. You know, like evoking Chappaquidick Teddy's name at the end of a speech, to attempt emotional manipulation from beyond the grave. Like dummying up fake military documents to release two weeks before the 2004 election, and attempting to pass them off as genuine. Like jeering Republican presidents during State of the Union addresses. You know, that sort of stuff...
If a Senator from Massachusetts can abandon a young woman in a wrecked car to die slowly of oxygen deprivation, and still be forgiven and loved, we can perhaps cut MC Joe from South Carolina a wee bit of slack. He's not likely to do anything outrageous again, unlike certain Massachusetts senators were known to do.
'Cuz you see, Joe was right. Himself and the Democrats have no intention of including any means of verification or enforcement to bar illegal immigrants from fully participating in the coming government health care scheme.
The Democrat leadership have one basic difference of world-view from Normal People: Normal People believe that Words convey Meaning. People like the Clintons, Pelosi, Frank, Reid and BHO understand that Words convey whatever they wish them to convey at any given moment. Words are noises produced in order to get one's way in the world, nothing more, nothing less.
Without any enforcement mechanism included in a law, verbiage is just verbiage.
Himself is a lawyer, and knows that. He just counts on the Normal People to not notice.
Joe's a Normal Person, and when the President of The United States told a whopper, Joe lost his temper.
Joe was right.
He Lies.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Words to Meditate Upon as Himself Mounts the Podium Tonight
From 2006, from the mouth of Senator Obama:
Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.
“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”
Now, Congress will be asked(and most will vote yes) to raise the debt ceiling to over 12 trillion dollars.
12 trillion dollars, and the real spending has just begun!
Words and numbers, in our real world, have meaning.
Apparently, for the President and most of Congress, they don't.
Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.
“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”
Now, Congress will be asked(and most will vote yes) to raise the debt ceiling to over 12 trillion dollars.
12 trillion dollars, and the real spending has just begun!
Words and numbers, in our real world, have meaning.
Apparently, for the President and most of Congress, they don't.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Joys of the Weekend
So grateful for the short respite of the US Labor Day weekend.
I've done strenuous things like walk the golf course, buy an inexpensive set of cookware with my bride (after nineteen years, maybe it's time to own a matched set!), work my way through A.N. Wilson's fabulous book After The Victorians, drink coffee, listen to the rain fall, pile my border collie into the pickup for a trip to the local skip(no home trash service out here in the country...), go to the grocery, the local feed store, the ice-cream store in the nearby village.
Etc., etc.
It's been wonderful. I've had time to exhale.
I'm tired.
At some point today, it dawned on me that Mrs. OldSouth and I have lived with our proverbial 'foot to the floor' since childhood, to some extent by choice, but mainly from necessity. We live in a hurried culture, which has for most of the past fifty or so years promoted consumption at the expense of production; without consciously acknowledging it, we've been doing battle with it the whole time. It hasn't been a losing battle in general, but it has been tiring.
For today, the border collie has the right plan: Curled up next to Mrs. OldSouth on the couch, snoozing.
Much to be done, and will have to jump into it tomorrow.
But for tonight...back to Mr. Wilson.
So grateful for this life I've been given.
I've done strenuous things like walk the golf course, buy an inexpensive set of cookware with my bride (after nineteen years, maybe it's time to own a matched set!), work my way through A.N. Wilson's fabulous book After The Victorians, drink coffee, listen to the rain fall, pile my border collie into the pickup for a trip to the local skip(no home trash service out here in the country...), go to the grocery, the local feed store, the ice-cream store in the nearby village.
Etc., etc.
It's been wonderful. I've had time to exhale.
I'm tired.
At some point today, it dawned on me that Mrs. OldSouth and I have lived with our proverbial 'foot to the floor' since childhood, to some extent by choice, but mainly from necessity. We live in a hurried culture, which has for most of the past fifty or so years promoted consumption at the expense of production; without consciously acknowledging it, we've been doing battle with it the whole time. It hasn't been a losing battle in general, but it has been tiring.
For today, the border collie has the right plan: Curled up next to Mrs. OldSouth on the couch, snoozing.
Much to be done, and will have to jump into it tomorrow.
But for tonight...back to Mr. Wilson.
So grateful for this life I've been given.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Jesse's September 5 Post
Jesse's Crossroads Cafe is a wonderful read, where theology, culture, and financial insight cross paths.
Today's post will hopefully 'go viral', and circle the globe a few times this week. He quotes thoughts of Cardinal Newman we all need to hear, and may well need to hang on to, if things start to go south on us.
As they may.
In any case, they are wonderful words for any time and place. To give you a taste, just a few follow here:
Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
Today's post will hopefully 'go viral', and circle the globe a few times this week. He quotes thoughts of Cardinal Newman we all need to hear, and may well need to hang on to, if things start to go south on us.
As they may.
In any case, they are wonderful words for any time and place. To give you a taste, just a few follow here:
Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Celebrating Labor Day With President Hopey-Changey
Now, let's go over all this again, a bit more slowly, so my Democrat friends can understand it.
Mr. Obama told us in January that if Congress didn't pass his 'stimulus package' (i.e. The Mother of All Pork-barrel Bills) that the unemployment rate would exceed 8%, but that if it did, then 'millions of jobs will be created and saved', 'cuz He said so, and He's always right.
So, now here we are: He got His bill, and the interstate highways are shut down coast-to-coast with construction projects of one sort or another(like fences installed in the medians--truly a necessity!), and the unemployment rate is officially 9.7%.
Mish Shedlock shared this graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics--and the most telling bit is on the bottom row, on the right-hand side. The true unemployment/dropped-out/working part-time out of necessity rate is now approaches 17%.
Wow, that really worked out great!
In defense of Our Fearless Leader, perhaps all this was baked-in before He ascended the throne. But His assertions that everything will just get better if we just spend-spend-spend and trust Him for the outcome erode the basic confidence needed to put a recovery together.
And He wonders why there is such trepidation about handing the country's health care system over to Him?
People have a hard time feeling confident about future risk if they sense they are not being told the truth in the present tense.
In a way, OldSouth hopes The One is lying, 'cuz that means He knows the truth and cynically chooses not to convey it. In that scenario, there is a glimmer of hope.
After all, Saul of Tarsus was struck down on the road to Damascus, and Change We Can Believe in occurred in that instance.
The really scary bit is that He may really really believe His own version of reality...
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Little Peek Ahead
A few posts ago, I passed along some information for Mom, Dad, and Junior about the future of college admissions.
Once again, thanks to Inside Higher Ed, another peek into the future: borrowing for higher ed has spiked 25% in the past year. Which means that the day when the class of 2014 will be able to climb out from under student debt and purchase that first home will be postponed for some years now.
Mom, Dad, Junior: The best use of junior's time on the time/money scale will be spent on making certain academics and selected extra-curriculars(such as classical music study)are in excellent shape. If Junior is out earning cash, every dollar he socks away is a dollar not borrowed for college, i.e. each of those saved teenage dollars looks more like five dollars by the time he's thirty. He may look cool in the new car with the high insurance payments, but he'll need the purchasing power for that new car fifteen years from now.
Another good use of Junior's time will be to visit daily with Mish Shedlock, who patiently explains what is happening to the economy, and what it well may mean for Junior's adulthood.
Once again, thanks to Inside Higher Ed, another peek into the future: borrowing for higher ed has spiked 25% in the past year. Which means that the day when the class of 2014 will be able to climb out from under student debt and purchase that first home will be postponed for some years now.
Mom, Dad, Junior: The best use of junior's time on the time/money scale will be spent on making certain academics and selected extra-curriculars(such as classical music study)are in excellent shape. If Junior is out earning cash, every dollar he socks away is a dollar not borrowed for college, i.e. each of those saved teenage dollars looks more like five dollars by the time he's thirty. He may look cool in the new car with the high insurance payments, but he'll need the purchasing power for that new car fifteen years from now.
Another good use of Junior's time will be to visit daily with Mish Shedlock, who patiently explains what is happening to the economy, and what it well may mean for Junior's adulthood.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Hope, Change, Change, Hope...
A big hat-tip to Jr. Deputy Accountant for passing along this from the Washington Post.
The cogent bits include:
J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street's most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.
A year after the near-collapse of the financial system last September, the federal response has redefined how Americans get mortgages, student loans and other kinds of credit and has made a national spectacle of executive pay. But no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.
Now, let's review: What happens when any structure becomes top-heavy? Is there not a reason aircraft carriers and battleships have wide keels and only travel in deep water?
What happens to a society when too much power is concentrated into too few (and by definition, fallible) hands?
This phenomenon began years ago, to be fair to the current People In Charge. However, it has accelerated dramatically since January 2009.
We have to assume this is their view of the World As It Should Be.
Heaven have mercy on The United States.
The cogent bits include:
J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street's most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.
A year after the near-collapse of the financial system last September, the federal response has redefined how Americans get mortgages, student loans and other kinds of credit and has made a national spectacle of executive pay. But no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.
Now, let's review: What happens when any structure becomes top-heavy? Is there not a reason aircraft carriers and battleships have wide keels and only travel in deep water?
What happens to a society when too much power is concentrated into too few (and by definition, fallible) hands?
This phenomenon began years ago, to be fair to the current People In Charge. However, it has accelerated dramatically since January 2009.
We have to assume this is their view of the World As It Should Be.
Heaven have mercy on The United States.
Monday, August 31, 2009
To Begin the Week
1. The Julia Project continues with 'Nun Lob, mein Seel, den Herren', a setting of a hymn tune common in Bach's day. I'm struck by how tolerant Bach was of dissonance, how creatively he moved in and out of those dissonant moments.
The theory texts I endured in school had totally sanitized the dissonances out of the process of learning how to harmonize, while still presenting the material as if it were based upon Bach. No wonder I slept through class!
I browsed through the theory text of a college freshman last week, and nothing has changed about the American approach to theory teaching. Dry, pedantic, and unconnected to the rich realities of Western music. Your tax dollars, once again, at work on campus. Multiply this example by a few thousand, across other disciplines, and understand the task ahead.
2. Two Green Shoots Awards candidates: Chicagoland's Brookhaven Market, and New Harmony Indiana's The White House Restaurant. Both are small operations, and fabulous experiences on last week's travels. It is businesses like these, that understand profits are made by truly serving customers(as opposed to raping them!), that will create the next American Renaissance. Three loud cheers for each establishment.
By the way, New Harmony Indiana was an inspiring visit...too long a task to detail now.
3. Speaking of awards--stumbled over an hour of sheer hilarity on CMT--the annual 'Here's Your Sign' Award, honoring the absolutely most stupid moments caught on video this year. My favorite was the guy who sawed off a tree limb while sitting on the part destined to fall...where have we seen that lately?
4. Walked nine holes from the blues, always kept the ball in play, started and ended on the same ball...6 over my goal of 'bogies from the blues'(carrying the bag, persimmon woods). But what fun!
The theory texts I endured in school had totally sanitized the dissonances out of the process of learning how to harmonize, while still presenting the material as if it were based upon Bach. No wonder I slept through class!
I browsed through the theory text of a college freshman last week, and nothing has changed about the American approach to theory teaching. Dry, pedantic, and unconnected to the rich realities of Western music. Your tax dollars, once again, at work on campus. Multiply this example by a few thousand, across other disciplines, and understand the task ahead.
2. Two Green Shoots Awards candidates: Chicagoland's Brookhaven Market, and New Harmony Indiana's The White House Restaurant. Both are small operations, and fabulous experiences on last week's travels. It is businesses like these, that understand profits are made by truly serving customers(as opposed to raping them!), that will create the next American Renaissance. Three loud cheers for each establishment.
By the way, New Harmony Indiana was an inspiring visit...too long a task to detail now.
3. Speaking of awards--stumbled over an hour of sheer hilarity on CMT--the annual 'Here's Your Sign' Award, honoring the absolutely most stupid moments caught on video this year. My favorite was the guy who sawed off a tree limb while sitting on the part destined to fall...where have we seen that lately?
4. Walked nine holes from the blues, always kept the ball in play, started and ended on the same ball...6 over my goal of 'bogies from the blues'(carrying the bag, persimmon woods). But what fun!
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