Marshall McLuhan

Crunchy Con: St. Marshall's warning
the Wired article: The Wisdom of Saint Marshall, the Holy Fool
Honoring Wired's Patron Saint

So is the electronic media more "dangerous" than the printed media? What would Plato say? Even if one cannot dialogue or interrogate a book, one can at least put it down and reflect upon what one has read before continuing. One might say that before the invention of recording devices, the electronic media required total attention--one can't stop and think, because one has to continue listening or one will miss something (possibly important). But how is this different from attending a lecture?
(Besides the lecture having a Q&A session afterwards.) The manipulation of images and sounds, to trigger certain responses and emotions? Something that goes beyond what a skilled orator is capable of?

Marshall McLuhan on the TODAY Show


Google video:
Retro: Mailer and McLuhan
The Official Site of Marshall McLuhan
The Marshall McLuhan Global Research Network
The Marshall McLuhan Center on Global Communications - HOME
Basic Mc Luhan: Marshall McLuhan and the Senses
Playboy Interview (just the interview, nothing else)

More info:
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan Links - Professor Bernard Hibbitts
Marshall McLuhan:"The Medium is the Message" by Todd Kappelman
Technological Determinism of Marshall McLuhan
The Connection.org : Revisiting Marshall McLuhan

Jerri Lynn Ward interviews Kevin Gutzman

Jerri Lynn Ward interview with Kevin Gutzman here (regarding the Constitution and its interpretation)

Other interviews with Kevin Gutzman
Pundit Review Radio: mp3 (PodcastBlaster directory)
Martin Dzuris Live Radio Show: mp3
With Phyllis Schlafly: Part1, Part2
American Federalist blog

Michael Oakeshott on a liberal education

The Love of Learning
Home Page of the Michael Oakeshott Association
Amazon.com: The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on ...

Launch of Education and the Voice of Michael Oakeshott by Dr. Kevin Williams
Liberal Learning as Conversation by John B. Bennett

Spring 2008 issue of The Intercollegiate Review

I got it today--two of the articles are of particular interest--"The New Classical Schooling" by Peter J. Leithart and "The Curious Return of the Small Family Farm" by Allan Carlson

Not available yet at the website, but here is the rest of the archives.

Edit: The Leithart article is available at First Principles.

Ron Paul, Politics and Judicial Activism

Politics and Judicial Activism

What went wrong with the Federal government? How should the Constitution be understood and interpreted? Topics worthy of further investigation...

Wen Jibao: Worst is still to come in snow emergency

CHINA
Wen Jibao: Worst is still to come in snow emergency
President Hu Jintao, the head of the armed forces, has asked the army to support "the local governments in every way possible". The prime minister explains that the worst is yet to come, while an economist quantifies the damage: a half point decrease in GDP growth, and a one-third point rise in inflation. The government is worried about public protests.

Robert Clinton, Precedent as Mythology: The Case of Marbury v. Madison

Precedent as Mythology: The Case of Marbury v. Madison

Robert L. Clinton

Beyond Capitalism and Socialism

new collection of essays from IHS Press--it should be published soon; Amazon page

Edit: The ChesterBelloc Mandate has more details about the book

Winter 2008 issue of Vermont Commons out

"Reviving Town Meeting"

LoS: The Grey Book

on sale here

The League of the South, the premier Southern Nationalist organization, announces the pending release of its long-awaited publication: The Grey Book: Blueprint for Southern Independence.

If there is one book you must read to understand today's Southern independence movement, it is The Grey Book.

Among other things, you will learn

1. Why Southern independence is not only desirable but likely
2. Why independence for the Southern States is the only realistic remedy for a descent into cultural barbarism, political tyranny, and economic bankruptcy
3. How a Southern nation, based on its Christian faith, would be radically different from the current American regime
4. How an independent South would handle the Social Security debacle
5. What sort of financial, monetary, and banking systems the South would adopt in order to ensure sound money and true economic prosperity
6. How a Southern armed services would look compared to the current imperial military
7. How a Southern defense and foreign policy would truly serve and defend the interests of the Southern people
8. How the dispossessed Southern Middle Class would benefit from independence
   
9. How the abolition of the income, property, and inheritance tax burden would increase prosperity and freedom
10. How breaking the current leftist media stranglehold would benefit the Southern people
11. How different education-elementary, secondary, and higher-would look in a free Southern nation
12. How law enforcement and the criminal justice system would be revamped to serve true justice and the security of the people of the South
13. How firearms ownership would be protected from anti-gun zealots

Finally, there is a plan and a vision for Southern independence.

Building castles in the air?

2 more from Dr. Wilson's list

are available through Google Books:

A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, by Alexander Hamilton Stephens

Robert Dabney's A Defence of Virginia, and Through Her, of the South

Lost: The Crash of Flight 815

Check out this fan-made video:


via NYMag

New Scientist: US drought 'man-made' says study

Via EB: Climate--Jan 2

US drought 'man-made' says study
Jim Giles, New Scientist
The water shortages gripping the western US are the result of global warming, not natural variations in climate, according to a bleak study by hydrologists. The results suggest that water disputes will plague the region in the future and damage economic growth unless action is taken now, warn researchers.

About 60% of the changes seen in river flow in the western US are due to warming caused by humans, their study suggests.

Key indicators have hinted at looming water problems for many years. More rain and less snow has been falling in mountain ranges such as the Rockies, for example. River levels, which depend on melting snow from the mountains during the spring and summer, have fallen as a result.

...Hopes that the drought is temporary have been dashed by the analysis, prompting leading researchers to intensify their calls for policy change.

Peter Gleick, a water policy expert at the Pacific Institute, an independent think tank based on Oakland, California, says that water use in his state could be reduced by a fifth by 2030, even if the population and economy continue to grow.

Many sectors need to change to achieve that goal. Agriculture would have to shift towards drip irrigation, in which small amounts of water are focused on individual plants, rather than whole areas being sprayed. Home owners would also have to adopt toilets and washing machines that use less water, he says.
(31 January 2008)

San Francisco Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force

Via EB: Peak oil - Feb 2

The San Francisco Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force explores life after fossil fuels -
an era that may be coming sooner than most people think
Charles Russo, San Francisco Bay Guardian

also posted at relocalize.net

sfenvironment.org: our city's policies: peak oil task force

2nd trailer for MR73

@ Twitch

Full recruiting video for Saint Gregory's Academy

here

Not sure if it was just uploaded recently, or if it couldn't play on one of the browsers and I just couldn't see it before. Makes one want to get involved with "alternate education."

Here's one for the cheerleaders

Too bad that in the case of those who swallow the party line [especially that of the Republican party or of so-called "conservative" pundits], "saving the cheerleader" will not save the world. Nonetheless, getting them to acknowledge the truth would be a good thing, but that may require a drastic conversion experience.

Economy Loses 17,000 Jobs in January
Recession Looms
By PETER MORICI

Michael Shedlock: Jobs Contract as 2007 Job Growth Revised Away

Department of Labor

U.S. job losses in January raise recession fears
A separate report from the Commerce Department showed an unexpectedly steep 1.1 percent drop in construction spending in December, as home construction continued it steep fall. Sales, construction and prices of both new and previously owned homes are in sharp decline with no early end in sight.

The Battle of Red Cliff trailer

@ Twitch

Lin Zhi Ling of course looks gorgeous.




Lin Zhi Ling's photogallery @ AsianFanatics Star's Avenue
AsianFanatics Forum > Lin Zhi Ling (林志玲)
Lin Zhi Ling - The (Taiwan) Celebrity* Gallery
Lin Zhi Ling pictures

The Duchess trailer

@ Apple

PCR, The Dollar’s Reserve Currency Role Is Drawing to an End

The Dollar’s Reserve Currency Role Is Drawing to an End

American Conservative endorses Ron Paul

The endorsement. Via Conservative Heritage Times.

The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 by Basil L. Gildersleeve

@ Project Gutenberg

Google Books

Stephen Colbert on Ron Paul

Check it out while it is still available...

Msgr. Cormac Burke on Self-Esteem

Self-esteem: Why or why not?

via Insight Scoop

Friday at school

I should have worked yesterday when I had the chance... but I didn't get enough sleep. But it would have been an easy day, floating. I got the call at 7:45... they probably would have waited for me to come to school, even though the bell rings at 8:15? Or maybe it's 7:45. I can't remember the schedule for that school.

Hrm, today I was at S____ School, near the d.o., subbing for a third-grade class. The teacher is ill, and may be in the hospital. She will be gone all of next week. At the end of the day I happened to see someone I know from my RCIA class, M's ex-fiancee? I can't remember her name, and I have forgotten if they were married or not, but I do remember that they separated, and she left the Church as a result. (M was in RCIA, and he did get baptized. Was he there only because of her? Was his conversion genuine? Who knows.)

One of the students in the class reminds me of Hermione Granger (or Emma Watson at least).



Except maybe her eyes are bigger... I don't know if the student is 100%, part or 0% Hispanic.

A lot of reminders to students to say please and thank you today.

One of the girls wanted me to hold her hand while we were walking to the cafeteria for rehearsal. (The 3rd graders are singing "What a Wonderful World" for a Tet/Lunar New Year celebration next Wednesday.) She was helping me pick up some paper holes (made by the hole puncher) and she got at the end of the line, and then she walked quickly to catch up with me and was looking at me with her hand out slightly. Where's the father/male figure in her life? Is he around?

Girls looking for a father figure... one can only pray that they don't end up with a bad guy later, or giving up their innocence for male attention.