Our first winter in our Virginia home atop the Blue Ridge, the heavens opened and it snowed two feet. I had inherited an old John Deere riding mower from the previous owners that could have a plow blade mounted on front, but that little garden tractor could not remotely handle that magnitude of snow.
My wife and I were already no longer young, and our driveway was long. We were wondering how long we’d be trapped when we heard noises outside. A neighbor, from a long way down the road, owned a Bobcat, and he was digging out everybody along Raven Rocks Road.
That kind of thing is both extraordinary and yet typical of life in rural America. Our neighbor had the right tool for the job and he knew perfectly well that almost nobody else was similarly equipped. He knew, too, that we were a long way from town, and the chances of anybody obtaining professional assistance were slim. So he just went down the whole road and dug everybody out.
I ran out and offered money, and he naturally refused. A few days later, I went to his house and dropped off a pretty good bottle of Bourbon.
One of the really nice things about living in the country, in red state, fly-over America is that people are neighborly. They believe in helping out other people who need a hand, and they regard it as their own responsibility to do that, not somebody else’s or the government’s.
So, try reading this piece on a similar experience had by Virginia Heffernan (Wikipedia profile) for the LA Times:
Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.
How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness?
Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks — and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro — but how much thanks?
These neighbors are staunch partisans of blue lives, and there aren’t a lot of anything other than white lives in neighborhood.
This is also kind of weird. Back in the city, people don’t sweep other people’s walkways for nothing. …
What do we do about the Trumpites around us? Like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who spoke eloquently this week about her terrifying experience during the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Americans are expected to forgive and forget before we’ve even stitched up our wounds. Or gotten our vaccines against the pandemic that former President Trump utterly failed to mitigate.
My neighbors supported a man who showed near-murderous contempt for the majority of Americans. They kept him in business with their support.
But the plowing.
On Jan. 6, after the insurrection, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) issued an aw-shucks plea for all Americans to love their neighbors. The United States, he said, “isn’t Hatfields and McCoys, this blood feud forever.” And, he added, “You can’t hate someone who shovels your driveway.”
At the time, I seethed; the Capitol had just been desecrated. But maybe my neighbor heard Sasse and was determined to make a bid for reconciliation.
So here’s my response to my plowed driveway, for now. Politely, but not profusely, I’ll acknowledge the Sassian move. With a wave and a thanks, a minimal start on building back trust. I’m not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet.
I also can’t give my neighbors absolution; it’s not mine to give. Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth. To pretend it is would be to lie, and they probably aren’t looking for absolution anyway.
But I can offer a standing invitation to make amends. Not with a snowplow but by recognizing the truth about the Trump administration and, more important, by working for justice for all those whom the administration harmed. Only when we work shoulder to shoulder to repair the damage of the last four years will we even begin to dig out of this storm.
That neighbor ought to go right out and plow this arrogant liberal cow back in.
You might not have thought a local English council meeting would be your essential viewing this week, but here we are.
On Thursday, footage of a chaotic Zoom call from Handforth Parish Council’s Planning and Environment Committee in Wilmslow, Cheshire, went viral on Twitter, racking up 3 million views and proving definitively that just because a meeting has the words “planning” and “committee” in its title, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be dull.
We could try to set the viral clip up a little more, but frankly it’s best if you see the thing yourself first.
It’s called “Cedarhurst,” built 1857, in a small town in the Hill Country of Northern Mississippi. This region is the home country of William Faulkner and of the great Memphis sporting author Nash Buckingham.
The property has ten acres and is located near the territories of two fox hunts.
Steve Smith at McSweeney’s has a go at briefly capturing the typical student character and personality.
Harvard: I would shiv someone to answer a question in class.
Yale: I wrote a Pulitzer-nominated play about the time I shivved someone to answer a question in class.
Princeton: I’ve structured a derivative, the Shiv Swap, whose price reflects the probability that a given shivving is successful in allowing one to answer a question in class.
Brown: We must ensure equal distribution of shivs across all socio-economic strata of American society.
The New York Times has determined that people who disagree with it are out of touch with reality, and SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
Several experts I spoke with recommended that the Biden administration put together a cross-agency task force to tackle disinformation and domestic extremism, which would be led by something like a “reality czar.”
It sounds a little dystopian, I’ll grant. But let’s hear them out.
Where do you suppose they will erect the re-education camps?
It was Feb. 3, 1943, and the U.S. Army Transport Dorchester was one of three ships in a convoy, moving across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to an American base in Greenland. A converted luxury liner, the Dorchester was crowded to capacity, carrying 902 servicemen, merchant seamen and civilian workers.
It was only 150 miles from its destination when shortly after midnight, an officer aboard the German submarine U2 spotted it. After identifying and targeting the ship, he gave orders to fire. The hit was decisive, striking the ship, far below the water line. The initial blast killed scores of men and seriously wounded many more.
Others, stunned by the explosion were groping in the darkness. Panic and chaos quickly set in! Men were screaming, others crying or franticly trying to get lifeboats off the ship.
Through the pandemonium, four men spread out among the Soldiers, calming the frightened, tending the wounded and guiding the disoriented toward safety. They were four Army chaplains,
Lt. George Fox, a Methodist;
Lt. Alexander Goode, a Jewish Rabbi;
Lt. John Washington, a Roman Catholic Priest;
and Lt. Clark Poling, a Dutch Reformed minister.
Quickly and quietly, the four chaplains worked to bring calm to the men. As soldiers began to find their way to the deck of the ship, many were still in their underwear, where they were confronted by the cold winds blowing down from the arctic.
Petty Officer John J. Mahoney, reeling from the cold, headed back towards his cabin. “Where are you going?” a voice of calm in the sea of distressed asked. “To get my gloves,” Mahoney replied. “Here, take these,” said Rabbi Goode as he handed a pair of gloves to the young officer. “I can’t take those gloves,” Mahoney replied. “Never mind,” the Rabbi responded. “I have two pairs.” It was only long after that Mahoney realized that the chaplain never intended to leave the ship.
Once topside, the chaplains opened a storage locker and began distributing life jackets. It was then that Engineer Grady Clark witnessed an astonishing sight. When there were no more lifejackets in the storage room, the chaplains simultaneously removed theirs and gave them to four frightened young men. When giving their life jackets, Rabbi Goode did not call out for a Jew; Father Washington did not call out for a Catholic; nor did Fox or Poling call out for a Protestant. They simply gave their life jackets to the next man in line. One survivor would later say, “It was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven.”
As the ship went down, survivors in nearby rafts could see the four chaplains — arms linked and braced against the slanting deck. Their voices could also be heard offering prayers and singing hymns.
Of the 902 men aboard the U.S.A.T. Dorchester, only 230 survived. Before boarding the Dorchester back in January, Chaplain Poling had asked his father to pray for him, “Not for my safe return, that wouldn’t be fair. Just pray that I shall do my duty…never be a coward…and have the strength, courage and understanding of men. Just pray that I shall be adequate.”
DOWN with rosemary and bayes,
Down with the mistleto,
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.
The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineere,
Until the dancing Easter-day,
Or Easter’s eve appeare.
Then youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.
When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kinne
To honor Whitsontide.
Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With color oken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments,
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed as former things grow o
Tintoretto, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, 1550-1555, Gallerie dell Accademi, Venice
From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869:
From a very early, indeed unknown date in the Christian history, the 2nd of February has been held as the festival of the Purification of the Virgin, and it is still a holiday of the Church of England. From the coincidence of the time with that of the Februation or purification of the people in pagan Rome, some consider this as a Christian festival engrafted upon a heathen one, in order to take advantage of the established habits of the people; but the idea is at least open to a good deal of doubt. The popular name Candlemass is derived from the ceremony which the Church of Rome dictates to be observed on this day; namely, a blessing of candles by the clergy, and a distribution of them amongst the people, by whom they are afterwards carried lighted in solemn procession. The more important observances were of course given up in England at the Reformation; but it was still, about the close of the eighteenth century, customary in some places to light up churches with candles on this day.
At Rome, the Pope every year officiates at this festival in the beautiful chapel of the Quirinal. When he has blessed the candles, he distributes them with his own hand amongst those in the church, each of whom, going singly up to him, kneels to receive it. The cardinals go first; then follow the bishops, canons, priors, abbots, priests, &c., down to the sacristans and meanest officers of the church. According to Lady Morgan, who witnessed the ceremony in 1820:
‘When the last of these has gotten his candle, the poor conservatori, the representatives of the Roman senate and people, receive theirs. This ceremony over, the candles are lighted, the Pope is mounted in his chair and carried in procession, with hymns chanting, round the ante-chapel; the throne is stripped of its splendid hangings; the Pope and cardinals take off their gold and crimson dresses, put on their usual robes, and the usual mass of the morning is sung.’
Lady Morgan mentions that similar ceremonies take place in all the parish churches of Rome on this day.
It appears that in England, in Catholic times, a meaning was attached to the size of the candles, and the manner in which they burned during the procession; that, moreover, the reserved parts of the candles were deemed to possess a strong supernatural virtue:
‘This done, each man his candle lights,
Where chiefest seemeth he,
Whose taper greatest may be seen; And fortunate to be,
Whose candle burneth clear and bright: A wondrous force and might
Both in these candles lie, which if At any time they light,
They sure believe that neither storm Nor tempest cloth abide,
Nor thunder in the skies be heard, Nor any devil’s spide,
Nor fearful sprites that walk by night,
Nor hurts of frost or hail,’ &c.
The festival, at whatever date it took its rise, has been designed to commemorate the churching or purification of Mary; and the candle-bearing is understood to refer to what Simeon said when he took the infant Jesus in his arms, and declared that he was a light to lighten the Gentiles. Thus literally to adopt and build upon metaphorical expressions, was a characteristic procedure of the middle ages. Apparently, in consequence of the celebration of Mary’s purification by candle-bearing, it became customary for women to carry candles with them, when, after recovery from child-birth, they went to be, as it was called, churched. A remarkable allusion to this custom occurs in English history. William the Conqueror, become, in his elder days, fat and unwieldy, was confined a considerable time by a sickness. ‘Methinks,’ said his enemy the King of France, ‘the King of England lies long in childbed.’ This being reported to William, he said, ‘When I am churched, there shall be a thousand lights in France !’ And he was as good as his word; for, as soon as he recovered, he made an inroad into the French territory, which he wasted wherever he went with fire and sword.
At the Reformation, the ceremonials of Candlemass day were not reduced all at once. Henry VIII proclaimed in 1539:
‘On Candlemass day it shall be declared, that the bearing of candles is done in memory of Christ, the spiritual light, whom Simeon did prophesy, as it is read in. the church that day.’
It is curious to find it noticed as a custom down to the time of Charles II, that when lights were brought in at nightfall, people would say–‘God send us the light of heaven!’ The amiable Herbert, who notices the custom, defends it as not superstitious. Some-what before this time, we find. Herrick alluding to the customs of Candlemass eve: it appears that the plants put up in houses at Christmas were now removed.
Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletoe;
Instead of holly now upraise
The greener box for show.
The holly hitherto did sway,
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter day
Or Easter’s eve appear.
The youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.
When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin’,
To honour Whitsuntide.
Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments,
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift; each thing in turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.’
The same poet elsewhere recommends very particular care in the thorough removal of the Christmas garnishings on this eve:
‘That so the superstitious find
No one least branch left there behind;
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see.’
He also alludes to the reservation of part of the candles or torches, as calculated to have the effect of protecting from mischief:
‘Kindle the Christmas brand, and then
Till sunset let it burn,
Which quenched, then lay it up again, Till Christmas next return.
Part must be kept, wherewith to tend
The Christmas log next year;
And where ‘tis safely kept, the fiend Can do no mischief there.’
Considering the importance attached to Candlemass day for so many ages, it is scarcely surprising that there is a universal superstition throughout Christendom, that good weather on this day indicates a long continuance of winter and a bad crop, and that its being foul is, on the contrary, a good omen. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, quotes a Latin distich expressive of this idea:
‘Si sol splendescat Maria purificante,
Major erit glacies post festum quam fait ante;
which maybe considered as well translated in the popular Scottish rhyme:
If Candlemass day be dry and fair,
The half o’ winter’s to come and mair;
If Candlemass day be wet and foul,
The half o’ winter’s gave at Yule.’
In Germany there are two proverbial expressions on this subject: 1. The shepherd would rather see the wolf enter his stable on Candlemass day than the sun; 2. The badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemass day, and when he finds snow, walks abroad; but if he sees the sun shining, he draws back into his hole. It is not improbable that these notions, like the festival of Candlemass itself, are derived from pagan times, and have existed since the very infancy of our race. So at least we may conjecture, from a curious passage in Martin’s Description of the Western Islands. On Candlemass day, according to this author, the Hebrideans observe the following curious custom:
The mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in women’s apparel, put it in a large basket, and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Brύd’s Bed.; and then the mistress and servants cry three times, “Brύd is come; Brύd is welcome!” This they do just before going to bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes, expecting to see the impression of Brύd’s club there; which, if they do, they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary they take as an ill omen.
——————————————————————
Groundhog Day is simply a modern commercialized adaptation of the earlier weather traditions associated with the Christian feast day.
“After another routine ban by Facebook – don’t look at me, we’re all hatemongers by this point – it’s time to resume operations. Speaking of operations – and hate – today I’m going to take a little break from the Marxism series to talk about the whole Wallstreetbets situation.
Most people I’ve talked to so far are thoroughly confused. They don’t really understand what happened, they really don’t understand how they should feel about the parts involved – and most liberty-related intellectuals are doing a lousy job at explaining it. So, to help clear things up, I’ll talk a little bit about both parties involved, their actions and their motivations.
The first thing you need to have in mind is that, in theory, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the stock market, hedge funds, or shorting stocks. The second thing you need to know is that, in practice, there’s virtually every thing wrong with hedge funds and shorting stocks. A stock market is simply a place where public companies are traded – they are a vital part of any market economy, which provide multiple types of funding, to multiple types of companies in an honest way, while limiting the risk of those doing the funding.
Hedge funds are companies that specialize in managing risk, in the context of the stock market. They analyze the yield, volatility and liquidity of all available financial operations, and craft complex investment strategies meant to maximize profit while minimizing risk. ‘Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket’ is how the saying goes – hedge funds specialize in allocating eggs in baskets. One of those financial operations is shorting, which consists of agreeing to purchase someone’s stock at a specific price, in the future.
If I short a stock you own, what we’re doing is entering an agreement. I will buy it from you for, say, 20 bucks, a month from now, and you have to sell it to me. If the stock is worth less than 20 bucks, you’ll be making money – if it’s worth more, I’ll be. It’s not a ‘bet’, as many people have been calling it, and there’s nothing sketchy or wrong about it. It’s an insurance device – I am buying your risk at a premium, and you’re buying the certainty that your investment will have a specific yield.
Well, the theory looks awesome, so what changes in practice?
Only one thing: Government intervention in the financial system.
For over 100 years now, the government has been gradually turning the stock market into a fraudulent casino. Debt-based currency has driven honest commodity money out of the market, making it impossible for people to save – their choice is to either watch their money lose value, or invest it haphazardly, creating an artificial, uneducated demand for investments. Artificially low interest rates have flooded the market with easy money, making unreasonable leveraging the norm, both for companies/funds and for individuals. Lastly, direct government intervention in the form of subsidies, regulations and, most notably, bail-outs have driven honest traders out of the market. If you act honestly towards the existing risk, you don’t profit enough to compete – if you take unreasonable risks, and bribe the right government officials, you will get bailed out when reality comes knocking.
There are no honest traders in the stock market any more. There might be people with honest motivations, such as ‘I’ll do my best in a system I know to be rotten’, or ‘I’ll try to protect my wealth as best I can, which includes trading stocks’. Every single person in the stock market now, however, can and should know that they’re engaging in an irrational system – and irrational systems pose irrational risks, such as the one we just saw.
What about the reddit people?
As with any loosely selected, decentralized group, they are far from homogeneous. From what I’ve seen, there’s a minority of people who understand what’s going on – including a few seasoned traders – and are deliberately playing against the system. They have my most sincere praise – making obscene profit while delivering an economic, political and cultural blow to a corrupt system is as moral and beautiful as it gets. The vast majority, however, seems to have a sort of ‘eat the rich’ mob mentality, which one of the worst mentalities one can have.
They do not despise hedge funds because they’re corrupt – they do so because hedge funds are successful, and they’re not. They do not care to understand what it is they’re doing – they saw a ‘loophole’, and decided to blindly exploit it. They are engaging in the very same second-handed irrationality that makes the financial system rotten in the first place, and most of those people will end up losing their money to it – just like any gambling junkie who’s won a few hands.
As for the future, you guys can expect lots of authoritarian regulation. We’re not in a metallist free-market system, and money does not belong to the individual – we’re in a chartalist state-controlled system, and ‘money’ is a government token used to allocate resources. The State will protect its assets, and maintain control over its financial system, by force. You can also expect to see an increasing number of bizarre occurrences such as this one. Whether we’re talking about a psychology, culture, politics or economics, a system close to collapse always behaves in a bizarre fashion, due to the disintegration of its tendencies.”
My father used to say: “The continent slopes, and all the fruits and nuts roll out to California.” And there, they wind up in public offices, like the school board of San Francisco which recently decided it needs to rename 44 schools on the basis of bizarre leftist grievances and animosities. Dianne Feinstein is not left-wing enough? What did Robert Louis Stevenson ever do? Was he guilty of stereotyping pirates?
The names of presidents, conquistadors, authors and even a current U.S. senator will be removed from 44 San Francisco school sites after the city’s school board Tuesday deemed the iconic figures unworthy of the honor.
The 6-1 vote followed months of controversy, with officials, parents, students and alumni at odds over whether Abraham Lincoln and George Washington high schools, Dianne Feinstein Elementary and dozens of others needed new names with no connection to slavery, oppression, racism or similar criteria.
Critics called the process slapdash, with little to no input from historians and a lack of information on the basis for each recommendation. In one instance, the committee didn’t know whether Roosevelt Middle School was named after Theodore or Franklin Delano.
“I must admit there are reasons to support this resolution, but I can’t,” said community member Jean Barish, who said the process has been flawed and based on emotion rather than expertise. “These are not decisions that should be made in haste.”
School board members, however, have insisted that the renaming is timely and important, given the country’s reckoning with a racist past. They have argued the district is capable of pursuing multiple priorities at the same time, responding to critics who say more pressing issues deserve attention.
The San Francisco school board voted to change the following school names:
Balboa High School, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa
Abraham Lincoln High School, U.S. president
Mission High School, Mission Dolores
George Washington High School, first U.S. president
Lowell High School, poet/critic James R. Lowell
James Denman Middle School, founder of first S.F. school
Everett Middle School, Edward Everett, American statesman
Herbert Hoover Middle School, U.S. president
James Lick Middle School, land baron
Presidio Middle School, S.F. military post
Roosevelt Middle School, Theodore or F.D., both U.S. presidents
Lawton K-8, U.S. Army officer Henry Ware Lawton
Claire Lilienthal (two sites), S.F. school board member
Paul Revere K-8, American Revolution patriot
Alamo Elementary, a poplar tree or the site of Texas Revolution battle
Alvarado Elementary, Pedro de Alvarado, conquistador
Bryant Elementary, author Edwin Bryant
Clarendon Elementary Second Community and Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, English politician
El Dorado Elementary, mythical City of Gold
Dianne Feinstein Elementary, U.S. senator and former S.F. mayor
Garfield Elementary, James Garfield, U.S. president
Grattan Elementary, William Henry Grattan, Irish author
Jefferson Elementary, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. president
Francis Scott Key Elementary, composer of “Star Spangled Banner”
Frank McCoppin Elementary, S.F. mayor
McKinley Elementary, William McKinley, U.S. president
Marshall Elementary, James Wilson Marshall, sawmill worker at Sutter’s Mill
Monroe Elementary, James Monroe, U.S. president
John Muir Elementary, naturalist
Jose Ortega Elementary, Spanish colonizer
Sanchez Elementary, Jose Bernardo Sanchez, Spanish missionary
Junipero Serra Elementary, Spanish priest
Sheridan Elementary, Gen. Philip Sheridan
Sherman Elementary, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Commodore Sloat Elementary, John Sloat, Navy officer
Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary, author
Sutro Elementary, Adolph Sutro, S.F. mayor
Ulloa Elementary, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish general
This Breitbart story demonstrates that the SF school board looney tunes were frequently confused or misinformed, but were sufficiently self-infatuated and intoxicated with power that they didn’t care.
George Romney, William Paley, National Portrait Gallery, London.
Davy tells in his Salmonia how the Bishop of Durham inquired of the great Dr. Paley “when one of his most important works would be finished, he said with great simplicity and good humour, ‘My Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly fishing season is over.'”
— George Parker Holden, The Idyll of the Split Bamboo.
