Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
It's getting late on a Friday night and I am poking around YouTube. Here are some odds and ends that I think are interesting.

Woody Guthrie: Jesus Christ

The Devil Went Down to Jamaica with The Muppets

Shoulda Know Better

The Ultimate Lovecraft Tribute

Death Don't Have No Mercy

Jesus Christ Superstar: The Crucifixion

Jesus Christ Superstar: Hosanna

Godspell: Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord

Bob Dylan: Slow Train Coming

Blind Faith: Presence of the Lord (for you youngsters, the guy with the guitar is Eric Clapton)
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Brits at Their Best links to, and comments on, the book choices of two writers for readers of various ages. Interesting. I may need to reread The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh.
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Story.

Herod the Great was the ruler when Jesus was born. In addition to cruelty, he was know for his building projects, including a renovation of the Second Temple.
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Check ou the blog Stormbringer. Today's page here featuring a remembrance of the late Darrell Powers, WW2 member of the 101st Airborne, and excerpts and a link to R. Crumb's (yes, that R. Crumb) history of Country Bluesmen, plus other posts.
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
At-home bioengineering the new hobby among science geeks known as biohackers. This sounds like chapter one of a novel that ends badly for humanity. Link Instapundit.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
The Decline of Middle America and the Problem of Meritocracy by Jeremy Beer

Excerpt:

The seemingly unassailable ideal of “equality of opportunity” demanded by the meritocratic regime has drawn scorn from thinkers such as those I have quoted in part because they have understood that in order for talent to triumph, it must be mobile. This, as we have seen, is precisely the aim of a meritocracy. It seeks to remove the barriers posed by tradition or culture — that is, barriers posed by institutions, texts, myths, habits, social forms, sensibilities, affections, characteristic practices, and the like — to the mobility of the intelligent. Thus, the more perfect the meritocracy, which we typically equate with justice itself, the more mobility — both geographic and social — is required, until talent is able to flow freely to where it can command the highest price. A perfect market for talent is the dream and goal of meritocracy: nothing must stand in the way of the rise of talent to primacy. Progress, understood both as the never-ending process of self-liberation and self-fulfillment, and as the indefinite expansion of our consumer economy, depends upon such mobility.

. . . .

The fact that our meritocracy rewards most those at home in the world of “abstractions and images” has further isolated our new elites from the rest of society by their insulation from manual labor. “The thinking classes are fatally removed from the physical side of life,” and indeed, only under such circumstances could such academic theories as “the social construction of reality” gain any purchase on the mind, concludes Lasch.

Another serious disadvantage to rule by the “best and brightest” is that, unlike the older, premeritocratic elite, with its codes of chivalry and concern for honor and family, the new elite, thinking that it owes its power to intelligence alone, has “little sense of ancestral gratitude or of an obligation to live up to responsibilities inherited from the past.” It “thinks of itself as a self-made elite owing its privileges exclusively to its own efforts.”

In sum, social mobility, far from being the sine qua non of democracy, actually “helps to solidify [elites'] influence by supporting the illusion that it rests solely on merit.”
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
Did everyone notice the administration's unremarked revival of the recently retired word "terrorist" when referring to its own citizens who are pro life, pro markets, and pro borders? So, NRA members and veterans are terrorists. Al Quaida are not. They are human causers of disaster.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
This pretty much takes the cake, in my opinion. I don't know what is worse--the President's request, or the University's acqueisence. I no longer recognize my own country.

According to reports, the Obama administration felt that "it seemed most respectful to have them covered so as not to be seen out of context." You know, the context of speaking to Catholics at a Catholic university.

UPDATE: Don't miss this brilliant commentary here.
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Last night Farmer and Okie were guests on Political Vindication Radio. To listen go here. Then find the blogtalkradio in the center near the top. Click on Looking Forward to 2030.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
It just happened in Iowa. Story here.

Out of 69 pages of pablum, here's the heart of the matter:

“[E]qual protection can only be defined by the standards of each generation.” (p. 16)

“The point in time when the standard of equal protection finally takes a new form is a product of the conviction of one, or many, individuals that a particular grouping results in inequality and the ability of the judicial system to perform its constitutional role free from the influences that tend to make society’s understanding of equal protection resistant to change.” (pp. 16-17)

Got that?

UPDATE: Allan Carlson nails it here.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh discusses the slippery slope here.