Saw some clogging on an episode of Justified -- would people hold on to wearing shoes for the sake of the dance? Or going barefoot most of the time, and donning shoes just for dancing?

Ruminating on how a radical embrace of the barefoot lifestyle can be harmonized with traditional culture... it seems to me that contra dancing could be done shoeless...

Best Bluegrass Clog Dancing Video Ever Made
Clog Dancing On The Porch With Bascom Lunsford
Beautiful Contra Folk Dancing

Alexander Cockburn, Fashion Critic

And his thoughts on the White House's OBL Affair: A Volcano of Lies.

Footnote: Peering briefly at the royal nuptials in a house high up in the mountains above Malibu, I was surprised to see how spectacularly tacky the British upper classes have become. They looked very vulgar. The appalling cuteness of the Aston Martin supplied the coup de grace.  The groom didn’t know how to stand up properly. Contrary to effusive comparisons,  the bride’s much touted dress from the atelier of the wildly overpraised late Alexander McQueen, was a far cry from Grace Kelly’s, designed by Helen Rose, who had dressed her in High Society and The Swan. The bride’s headdress hung like a dishrag.  The only vestments born with confidence and aplomb were those of the churchmen. The Archbishop of Canterbury, with his emphatic beard and specs, had a splendid cope. His voice was confident. I’d like to see him in debate with one of Teheran’s ayatollahs. But the Anglo actresses watching the event on our mountain were ecstatic. My daughter Daisy, returning to London two days later, reported that the young women she was encountering were all swept away by the event and eager for marriage. 

You Must Think Happy Thoughts

Begun on April 15.

I am referring to the BS exercise that is the normal application process for a job, not to the PC environment of certain companies. (Can the corporate workplace be compared to a totalitarian regime in that respect, with HR and management functioning as thought police?) One has to express a desire to further one's career, an interest or belief in the company and its mission, dedication, and so on. How do those seeking work without wishing to compromise their integrity or ideals succeed, when they cannot beg for work? It seems to me that today hiring one's self out is not the same as before. It is more difficult to do so and one has less opportunities to prove one's self based on ability, product, and experience alone.

It is not enough that you give your labor, but you must also hand over your mind and soul to your employer. Modern-day professed enthusiasm for the company, the work, the product and the mission trumps any old-fashioned work ethic (Catholic or Protestant).

It seems to me that a white collar wage slave must be able to talk about grandiose life plans and implicitly show a desire to make the company's meaning and purpose one's own in order to be hired. Without a social network or valuable personal recommendations, can an employer really evaluate the character of a prospective employee? I imagine that the gatekeepers in HR are impressed with those who successfully BS them about fulfillment. Maybe I'm wrong about how much the initial HR review of a resume and cover letter gauges interest and "compatibility." The interview will give various people a better idea of what a person is like, with respect to social skills and interest, and an employer, when choosing between candidates for a position will probably want someone who wants to be there at the company and is thinking of working there for a while. They may want to find motivated workers, but duty doesn't count enough.


 
It reminds me a bit of universities and of medical schools, which no longer serve the local community by finding someone who wants to stay in the area and is suited for the work, but choose applicants based on other considerations, including enhancing their admissions profile.

Perhaps the technogeeks are doing what they like; is this true of everyone else in the white-collar sector, working for large companies? How much of the work being done in the (post-)industrial economy is truly useful or beneficial for society? (I.e. furthering the common good and our ultimate end, as opposed to promoting consumption for the sake of production?)


Once hired, a male in most corporations is neutered -- unable to openly express what one believes or feels; going along to get along is the SOP and necessary for keeping one's job. In a PC work environment, there is thought control -- one can't think bad thoughts. Otherwise one may lose one's job on the basis of some excuse (or worse, a false accusation of harassment or some other PC crime).
Am I too much of an outsider, relying too much on the experiences of others and my own imagination to write this?

Something from Common Dreams:
Delusion and Denial Part 1: Work, Jobs, Careerism, Charity
by Kristine Mattis

Mary Surratt: Guilty or Innocent

The Conspirator YT channel

Amateurs

Bin Laden Killing: How the White House, Pentagon and CIA Botched the Storyline (link via VFR)

Alamire on Soundcloud

Here

William Lind pushing for 3GW reform

Generation Gap

Maneuver-warfare tactics require a unique military culture. The difference begins with outward instead of inward focus. In a Second Generation armed service, attention is focused inward, on orders, rules, processes, and procedures. In the Third Generation, the focus is outward, on the enemy, the situation, and the result the situation requires. Getting that result trumps everything else, including orders. In fact, an order does not tell the subordinate what to do. It tells him what result his superior at least two levels up is trying to obtain, the “commander’s intent,” and leaves him wide freedom of action as to how to accomplish his mission that is part of that intent.

A Second Generation military culture is centralized, prizes obedience over initiative—initiative disrupts “synchronization,” a Second Generation fetish—and rests on imposed discipline. A Third Generation culture is decentralized, values initiative over obedience, and relies on self-discipline. Only these cultural characteristics make fluid, time-competitive maneuver-warfare tactics and operations possible.

From these cultural requirements flow other characteristics of a Third Generation military. The officer corps is small: not a pyramid, but a mesa that tops out at the rank of battalion commander with only a tiny “spike” of general staff officers and senior commanders rising higher. Nothing drives centralization more powerfully than an officer surplus above the company grades.

TAC June 2011 issueThere is no “up or out” promotion system like that found today in the U.S. military, where an officer must constantly buck for promotion or leave the service. If someone wants to remain a sergeant or captain his entire career and is good at his job, he may. The poison of promotion politics is devastating to the strong character effective officers need. The military definition of strong character is eagerness to make decisions and act.

Today's peak oil lesson

For a second grade class -- I didn't explicitly mention peak oil, but the social studies lesson was on natural resources and how they are limited. I told the students that plastics come from oil, and that to waste plastic is to waste oil -- we should recycle plastic, or better yet, not use it in the first place...

Rhonda Vincent, "Taken"

Bluegrass Blog: Rhonda Vincent releases Taken video

Growing Roots: Peter Maurin and the Agronomic University by Eric Anglada

Peter Maurin, Apostle to the World by Dorothy Day
Peter Maurin's Personalist Gift to the Catholic Worker

Re: Osama not being a Muslim leader

An Orthodox Muslim: Bin Laden’s Theology and Terrorism by Srdja Trifkovic

Citizen Soldier DVD Extended Version

Several years old now... this was played a lot in movie theaters, and I see it, I can't help but think propaganda for the National Government and the Union Army.


Some more commercials:




(The most recent?)

I haven't seen anything for 2011 yet...

What is Vengeance?

Marc DeGirolami asks in relation to the killing of OBL, "Is Vengeance Forbidden?"

Vengeance could be used to name an emotion, in which case it seems to be not the same as hate but is related to anger. As Mr. DeGirolami notes, St. Thomas Aquinas links the act of the will named vengeance to justice. It is not the same as hatred.

More from Dr. Fleming: Rule By Assassination II (Dr. Fleming also examines Ayn Rand in Jerks: The Individualist, Part I.)

The AAM commences its tour of East Asia

Its latest blog entry. The first stop: Seoul, South Korea - Friday and Saturday.

Transcript for Prince Charles's speech at Georgetown

Here.

This is the challenge facing us. We have to maintain a supply of healthy food at affordable prices when there is mounting pressure on nearly every element affecting the process. In some cases we are pushing Nature’s life-support systems so far, they are struggling to cope with what we ask of them. Soils are being depleted, demand for water is growing ever more voracious and the entire system is at the mercy of an increasingly fluctuating price of oil.

Remember that when we talk about agriculture and food production, we are talking about a complex and interrelated system and it is simply not possible to single out just one objective, like maximising production, without also ensuring that the system which delivers those increased yields meets society’s other needs. As Eric has highlighted, these should include the maintenance of public health, the safeguarding of rural employment, the protection of the environment and contributing to overall quality of life.

So I trust that this conference will not shy away from the big questions. Chiefly, how can we create a more sustainable approach to agriculture while recognizing those wider and important social and economic parameters – an approach that is capable of feeding the world with a global population rapidly heading for nine billion? And can we do so amid so many competing demands on land, in an increasingly volatile climate and when levels of the planet’s biodiversity are under such threat or in serious decline?

The link for the video is posted here.

Raj Patel on how many people the world can feed

Raj Patel, Can The World Feed 10 Billion People?

Byzantine, Texas: New Orthodox studies program forming in San Francisco - Saints Cyril and Athanasius of Alexandria Institute for Orthodox Studies

Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco

Will they be in the Bay Area?

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge To Visit California, United States of America

The discussion of Vatican 2 continues

Sandro Magister, The Church Is Infallible, But Not Vatican II

And it made mistakes, maintains traditionalist historian Roberto de Mattei. The dispute continues for and against the popes who guided the Council and put its innovations into practice

Jimmy Moore interviews Tim Ferriss

The LLVLC Show (Episode 468): Tim Ferriss Promotes His Slow-Carb Approach From ‘The 4-Hour Body’ (mp3)

The Four-Hour Workweek


Check this out:
Dr. Charles Mobbs: Diabetic Kidney Damage Can Actually Be Reversed With A High-Fat, Low-Carb Ketogenic Diet

And a discussion of Whole Foods:
Low-Carb Conversations Podcast (Episode 8): Andrew DiMino And CJ Low Carb Confront Whole Foods Pushing Veganism (mp3)


Something from 2009 with one of my favorite American actresses: Actress Courtney Thorne-Smith Says Low-Carb Is How Hollywood Eats (Episode 287)

Kershaw Blur, again

info




An older version of the knife:

Paleo Solution with Guest Gary Taubes

The Paleo Solution – Episode 78 (mp3)

The Art of Manliness: Classical Rhetoric 101: The Five Canons of Rhetoric-Delivery

The Archdruid Report: The Downside of Dependence

The Archdruid Report: The Downside of Dependence: "I’m not sure if last week’s Archdruid Report post hit a nerve, or if thoughts similar to the ones I discussed there have been busy all by t..."

L'Angelus Performs Cajun Twist/Take On Me Medley