Presidential Proclamation--Civil War Sesquicentennial
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
KK's daughter was born today
I didn't have a chance to go to the hospital with the rest of the family tonight since I had to go home; I don't think I'll be able to visit tomorrow before they leave since they'll be at work...
Enough to tempt me
RHK had a booklet for the new Mini Cooper Countryman at his house. He himself drives a Mini Cooper (S). I do like the look of the dashboard; I was a bit surprised when I first learned how bad its gas mileage was. But if I were to get a new car...
2011 Mini Cooper Countryman First Look
First drive video: Mini Cooper Countryman S
2011 Mini Cooper Countryman First Look
First drive video: Mini Cooper Countryman S
segamartinez: Gary Taubes: The Complications of Cholesterol
segamartinez: Gary Taubes: The Complications of Cholesterol: "In 2005, my wife and I interviewed Gary Taubes at his apartment in New York City. We were planning on doing a documentary on diet and health..."
Saw another commercial with children who achieve in excess of what adults are capable of doing. It goes beyond being precocious; it's rather annoying. Another example would be the movie Spy Kids - children who happen to be superspies who save the world. Sometimes, as in the movie, their abilities are explained through "genetics." But sometimes it is assumed that their abilities, identical with or greater than those of adults, are innate. We've seen instances of smart-alecky kids in the mass media and in real life. Such shows are staples for children's television on broadcast and cable networks. It can be an early manifestation of pride, one that adults can feed, perhaps unwittingly. (Those responsible for putting on such garbage on TV would seem to be guilty of pandering to the egos of children.) Such a phemenon reveals a cultural belief that children do not need the wisdom of their elders or experience in order to be educated. It's another form of radical egalitarianism. (Of course, rarely are mothers shown to be incompetent. It is the father who must bear the brunt of that mockery.)
Local Future 2010 Conference on Sustainability first day video is now online
Aaron Wissner, Local Future
Aaron Wissner, Local Future
The breakdown of economic expansion in the 21st century
Dave Cohen, Decline of the empire (EB)
My thesis is that global economic expansion has broken down, and where there are pockets of economic growth as in China or Brazil, it is unlikely that growth will continue for much longer. (I am thinking on decadal scales.) Clearly this is a subject for a book, whereas today I am going to outline why this thesis is credible in a blog post.
Dave Cohen, Decline of the empire (EB)
My thesis is that global economic expansion has broken down, and where there are pockets of economic growth as in China or Brazil, it is unlikely that growth will continue for much longer. (I am thinking on decadal scales.) Clearly this is a subject for a book, whereas today I am going to outline why this thesis is credible in a blog post.
Monday, April 11, 2011
The City
Anamnesis Journal: The Soul & the City: The House of Our Realities by Wilfred McClay (via Peter Haworth)
Traditionalists may believe that the city is the ideal political arrangement, but they would be looking primarily not at the material culture or products or buildings, but at the associations and the differentiation of labor that makes natural human perfection possible. What then, of historical memory and permanence? Do these not presuppose that one is able to identify with places or objects as belonging to one's heritage?
Sheep presume that there is no threat of violence, and they may be too trusting of the strangers who surround them.
Last morning I had a dream about da Jimmy and his sister. I can't say it was a restful night; what prompted the dream? md.
In short, we humans are made by, through, and for relationship with one another. The forms of these relationships are various—in marriage, in family, community, nations, the Kingdom of God. Each has a unique valence. Perhaps the most powerful of all Biblical insights into relationship is in the organismic model put forward in I Corinthians 12, in which the individuals comprising the Church are compared to the specialized organs and members of the body—powerful when they operate in concert, but useless in isolation.I have some things to say about the United States and whether we have any true identity as a people or peoples. The main weakness of this essay is that it does not take into consideration the question of size. Even if some semblance of a human life can be found in neighborhoods, rather than in the megapolis as a whole, the megapolis is a problem because it is not sustainable without cheap energy and it cannot be governed well (much less self-governed as a republic),
But what about great cities, then, such as New York, Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles? Are they not a very particular kind of relationship, one in which anonymity, impersonality and instrumentality are often the watchwords, and tend to replace fully human face-to-face personal relations as embodied in small-town life? Aren't the great cities of our age dehumanizing and mechanistic by their very nature, tending to produce people who have lost touch with the lived realities of nature?
Such has very often been the verdict that Americans have rendered about their own great cities. Indeed, the problem of the city may be more advanced here, precisely because we Americans have, for most of our history, lacked an urban ideal.
What I mean in saying this is that Americans in general have had a hard time reconciling what they think of as characteristically American aspirations with the actual life of modern American cities. It's a certain disharmony between the way we think and the way we live. Our fierce attachment to ideals of individualism, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and closeness to nature do not always seem, for many Americans, to comport with the conditions of modern urban life. Perhaps that is because America, as historian Richard Hofstadter quipped, is a nation that “was born in the country and has moved to the city,” but has never entirely adapted the city’s mentality. Or to put it another way, altering a famous saying about the British Empire, we became an urban civilization in a fit of absence of mind, having never fully adjusted our ideas about ourselves to the conditions in which we find ourselves actually living.
Traditionalists may believe that the city is the ideal political arrangement, but they would be looking primarily not at the material culture or products or buildings, but at the associations and the differentiation of labor that makes natural human perfection possible. What then, of historical memory and permanence? Do these not presuppose that one is able to identify with places or objects as belonging to one's heritage?
Sheep presume that there is no threat of violence, and they may be too trusting of the strangers who surround them.
Last morning I had a dream about da Jimmy and his sister. I can't say it was a restful night; what prompted the dream? md.
The Thinking Housewife: The Pregnant Pagan
Just yesterday afternoon at Target I saw a cover with a pregnant Mariah Carey -- of course she was naked, with her arms covering strategic parts... does this really reflect an exaltation of motherhood? More like a focus on the obvious physical changes in a woman's body, as if that were sufficient to qualify a woman as a good mother. And there is the reduction of feminine beauty to the physical -- as if pregnant women must proclaim that their bodies are beautiful too, even if at times they do not feel beautiful because of the increase in weight.
Just yesterday afternoon at Target I saw a cover with a pregnant Mariah Carey -- of course she was naked, with her arms covering strategic parts... does this really reflect an exaltation of motherhood? More like a focus on the obvious physical changes in a woman's body, as if that were sufficient to qualify a woman as a good mother. And there is the reduction of feminine beauty to the physical -- as if pregnant women must proclaim that their bodies are beautiful too, even if at times they do not feel beautiful because of the increase in weight.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Had my first can of Blue Sky soda
Root beer -- apparently it is more expensive than Hansen's, at least at Whole Foods. (Maybe it's cheaper in bulk from Costco? I'm guessing it is available in bulk from Costco...) It's "certified organic" according to USDA standards -- organic cane sugar. I can't say that it tastes better than Hansen's. I think Hansen's might have a stronger root beer flavor.
A Justified fan
Xiao Jimmy. I think the show goes too far, and makes everyone in the rural areas of Kentucky to be some variant of poor white trash, but perhaps that is reality. But it is for the most part enjoyable enough to keep me watching.
The show has been renewed for a third season.
website
The show has been renewed for a third season.
website
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