The Bosque Boys

We live in strange times.

We spend more money on weddings than ever before, and marriages are becoming temporary.

We have an abundance of time and labor-saving devices, and live more hectic lives.

We use more coarse language in public, but villify any speech that might offend certain groups.

And we exercise more moral discipline in regard to our eating, than in regard to our sex lives.

Food, Sex, and Conscience by James Tonkawich.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), an American writer of weird fiction for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 30s, created a body of work that has the touch of genius. Himself a materialist and atheist, he believed that modern readers could no longer be touched by traditional ghost stories. Therefore, he created stories that were given enough "scientific" language and explanation to aid the reader in the suspension of disbelief, in which the monsters were alien to earth, some even alien to our dimensional universe. These monsters were fit into a mythos, a cosmic story of great power.

The being that seems to have the greatest hold on the imagination of readers, and other writers who added stories set within the Lovcraftian mythology, is Cthulu. Cthulu is a sort of water elemental, living partly in our universe, while perhaps existing simultanously in other dimensions beyond our own. At the present time Cthulu is imprisoned within the sunken city of R'lyeh beneath the sea where he lies dreaming. His dreams can touch certain of the "weak minded" of the human race, who create a cult to worship and free their "god." When the stars reach proper alignment, Cthulu will rise again, ending humanity and reality as we know it.

Lovecraft's writing was rescued from oblivion by two friends, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, who founded Arkham House to publish Lovecraft's work, and that of other writers of weird fiction.

H. P. Lovecraft biography.

List of Lovecraft's fiction.

Lovecraft also wrote a respected critical history of weird fiction, Supernatural Horror in Literature

The Cthulu Myth in song. While it is a parody of another song, it presents a good summary of Lovecraft's most famous creation.

Metallica: The Call of Cthulu.

Cradle of Filth: Cthulu Dawn

Septic Flesh: Lovecraft's Death

James Tonkawich has an essay that makes the same point I did in an earlier post--that a welfare-state undermines the character of citizens.

He also makes another point, that welfare-states are bad for the health of churches. I don't agree completely with his reasoning, and may address the issue at greater length later. Historically, secularization in Europe preceeded both the decline in church attendance and the creation of the modern European welfare-state. The correlation between weak churches and strong governmets may not be direct, but both may be the product of secularization.

Last week for my birthday the older son and daughter-in-law took my wife and I to a concert by the Duke Ellington Orchestra performing at his university.

Wow. The Sound Continues. The Duke is dead, but the band continues, like a living organism replacing members as they die or move on.

It is a tribute band, playing tunes written by Duke, or perfomed by his band. But it also is a living jazz band, blessed with wonderful, inventive soloists who express their own creativity within the charts.

For an introduction to the music of Duke, here is the official band site, with music.

If you need an introduction to Edward Kennedy Ellington, the Duke, then go here, or here.

When Ellington died in May, 1974, a radio station in another town announced they would devote the entire evening to his music. I got in the car and drove until I could pick up the station, then pulled into a field driveway to sit and listen. Royalty deserves respect.

In late winter I did a funeral for a Texas woman who had been in a nursing home for several years. Her husband preceded her in death. Both of them went into assisted living together when they could still dress themselves and walk to the cafeteria. Together they had operated a small-town grocery for a time; and he had also been a housepainter (after the store, I think). When they were first making plans to leave their house, the accountant suggested they give up their assets to their children so that Medicaid, and perhaps other government programs, would pay for the cost of care. The man refused. He believed that people should take care of themselves, and not go on charity unless absolutely necessary. His children agreed. So the couple paid their way.

In a few years this story will seem a fairy-tale.

We want to help people. But, an unintended consequence of helping can be to destroy self-reliance.

When I went to seminary my wife and I had a small savings account. The seminary--the best endowed in the world--could afford generous financial aid. Tuition cost was factored on the ability to pay. The first year, because of the savings account, I had a small tuition cost. After depleting our savings, the next two years I paid no tuition. It did not take a genius to figure out that if we had spent the money rather than saved, I would have paid no tuition the first year. We could have had some fun with the money, and then been taken care of.

We want to help people. But, an unintended consequence of helping can be to destroy a sense of responsibility.

The evil of a welfare-state is that it nurtures dependency rather than independency, perpetual childhood rather than maturity, sloth rather than prudence.

Jazz musicians have been adapt at taking inspiration from various sources, and turning it into jazz. One of the best at expanding horizons was Don Ellis, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. He was one of the first to bring electronic music, and rock music, and world music, and classical music, and avant-guarde modern music, into the transformative embrace of jazz.

If you've not heard of him, you obviously are not alone. Youtube has little on him. If I had the proper skills, I might try to post some of my old albums online.

Here are the charts that are on there:

Bulgarian Bulge live from 1969.

New Horizons

That's all I can find of Don Ellis playing his own stuff. But the Wurzburg Jazz Orchestra in 2007 had the courage to do an Ellis tribute and play several of his charts.

Final Analysis For those of you trying to count along, the basic meter is 4/4 with just enough 5/4 thrown in to keep you on your toes.

Of course, there are other sources online. Here's Last.FM with some Ellis.

Here's a fan site.

Tired of Freebird after the 10,000th time? Wonder if Southern Rock is more than replays of Lynard Skynard, Allman Brothers, or J. Geils?

Give a listen to Drive By Truckers. Hard rocking. And hard-edged. Music from the Southern underside. Lots of sin, little grace, despair faced down by grit, prickly pride.

Lookout Mountain

Never Gonna Change

Decoration Day

Lyrics by album.

Recently the U.S. State Department issued a Travel Warning for U.S. citizens regarding Mexico. An excerpt:

The greatest increase in violence has occurred near the U.S. border. However, U.S. citizens traveling throughout Mexico should exercise caution in unfamiliar areas and be aware of their surroundings at all times. Mexican and foreign bystanders have been injured or killed in violent attacks in cities across the country, demonstrating the heightened risk of violence in public places. In recent years, dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped across Mexico. Many of these cases remain unresolved. U.S. citizens who believe they are being targeted for kidnapping or other crimes should notify Mexican officials and the nearest American consulate or the Embassy as soon as possible, and should consider returning to the United States.
. . .
Mexican drug cartels are engaged in an increasingly violent conflict - both among themselves and with Mexican security services - for control of narcotics trafficking routes along the U.S.-Mexico border. In order to combat violence, the government of Mexico has deployed troops in various parts of the country. U.S. citizens should cooperate fully with official checkpoints when traveling on Mexican highways.

Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades. Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico but most recently in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez. During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area. The U.S. Mission in Mexico currently restricts non-essential travel to the state of Durango and all parts of the state of Coahuila south of Mexican Highways 25 and 22 and the Alamos River for U.S. government employees assigned to Mexico. This restriction was implemented in light of the recent increase in assaults, murders, and kidnappings in those two states. The situation in northern Mexico remains fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements cannot be predicted.

Many U.S. colleges and universities have issued warnings to students to avoid travel to Mexico, and even the southern U.S. near the border.

This violence results from the money to be made smuggling illegal drugs into the U.S. for sale. The demand for illegal drugs by U.S. citizens drives the killing in Mexico.

So, what should we do?

I wish I knew a great and simple answer to that question.

For starters, I have advocated before the legalization of marijuana use--not because I think it harmless, but because too many Americans want to use it to make stopping it possible, while preserving a free society.

Do the arguments I use to argue for legalization of marijuana mean also that all drugs should become legal? Legalizing all drugs probably would end much of the violence in Mexico, and in our own cities. The large underground drug economy would be taken up into the tax-paying legal economy.

But, part of my rationale for marijuana legalization is that the social harm done by marijuana is less than the social harm done by making it illegal. I don't think that case can be made for lots of other drugs, such as meth. Though with the damage being done to Mexico, perhaps I need to rethink my position.

So, what can/should we do, before our neighbor to the south slips further into violent anarchy?

Would gaining actual control of our border with Mexco help? If, and that is a big if for logistical and political reasons, we gain control of our border, then the fighing for control of smuggling routes should decline. I think, therefore that securing the border must become a higher priority not only for ourselves, but for the Mexican government.

Would it help to try to decrease the demand? Seems obvious to me. Perhaps we should have taken a few tens-of-millions away from some of the pork items in the "Stimulus" bill and put them into drug rehabilitation, advertizing, and community faith-based organizations.

And if we take a strong position on prosecuting for possession and use, how about CCC-style work camps with literacy training and skill development.

I wish I knew a quick and easy answer that will save Mexico from the consequences of our bad habits.

Very interesting post from Brits at their Best on the contrast between Britain and Europe in the past, quoting from a book by Alan Macfarlane, who uses among other sources Montesquieu's observations when he visited Britain in 1729. Montesquieu was a French thinker who was read and admired by the Founders of our nation.

In The Origins of English Individualism, Alan Macfarlane explains that Montesquieu visited England in 1729 and plunged into a study of its political and social institutions which he clearly found alien -

"'I am here in a country which hardly resembles the rest of Europe.'

In his work on The Spirit of the Laws, he noted that the social, economic and religious situation, connected to law and politics, was different in England. The English were wealthy, enjoying a 'solid luxury'; England was a trading nation as a result of its freedom from restrictive laws and 'pernicious prejudices'."

Between the 16th and 18th centuries English travellers noticed with shock and horror that France's rural populations had a miserable diet and pathetic clothing. The French were oppressed by heavy taxes and by royal troops that regularly pillaged and beggared villages.

"The husbandman in France, 'scraped to the bones, and . . .dressed in hemp', 'never goeth to the market, to sell anything: but he payeth a toll, almost the half of that he selleth'."

In contrast, travellers in England, among them the Venetian Embassy, noted with amazement -

". . .the absence of heavy taxation, of billeted soldiers, and of internal taxes. This meant that 'every inhabiter of that realm useth and enjoyeth at his pleasure all the fruits that his land or cattle. . .or travail gaineth'.

Yeomen ate plentifully of fish and flesh, drank beer or wine, wore fine wool, had a great store of tools, and often sent their children to university.

'. . .the riches of England are greater than those of any other country in Europe. . .there is no small innkeeper, however poor and humble he may be, who does not serve his table with silver dishes and drinking cups. . .'"

Notice among the differences which gave advantage to Britain were low or no taxes enabling persons to keep the wealth they generated which in tern enabled them to start their families on a path of upward mobility.

Macfarlane also noted that de Tocqueville on his visit to England made similar observations and credited English prosperity to

'The spirit which animates the complete body of English legislation' and because 'The nobles and the middle classes in England followed together the same courses of business, entered the same professions, and what is much more significant, intermarried. . . .'
'classes which overlap, nobility of birth set on one side, aristocracy thrown open, wealth as the source of power, equality before the law, office open to all, liberty of the press, publicity of debate' (L' Ancien Regime).

Why do the Democratic party leadership want to make us look more like France, ancient and modern?

Speaking of the European Union, Brits offers this explanation and contrast:

Today, Socialists and redistributors share a weird mental delusion. They take a snapshot of the poor, the middle class and the upper class and they freeze it in time. In their vision, those who are poor will always be poor - unless the government intervenes. Those who are rich will always be rich - unless, again, the government intervenes.

This is like taking a picture of your children and thinking they are always going to be seven years old.

It is certainly true that there will probably always be individuals who are poorer than others, but over a period of years they will not be the same individuals. Socialists and redistributors do not see this because they do not see individuals. They see classes.

I would modify this assessment and exchange "familes" for "individuals" as more realistic. In our country we have seen over and over again one generation toiling on a lower rung of the ladder in order to enable the next generation to climb to a higher rung. The American immigrant experience often has been of Mom and Dad barely speak English, work hard at entry-level jobs, push their children to succeed in school, and their children move into the Middle Class.

In my first year of seminary (1980-81) I was a Youth Pastor in Kearny, New Jersey, an urban working-class Scots-Irish neighborhood. Over 80% of our congregation had been born overseas. The pastor and I joked that our youth ministry motto should be "Training Tomorrow's Leaders for Suburban Churches". Most of the "kids" of our church would go on to live further out from New York in more affluent suburbs.

Listen to this embed video and just try not to move. Make even clumsy white guys like me boogie in the office chair. Juke-joint pedal steel supreme. From the Infidel Bloggers' Alliance.

Here are a couple of tracks from my favorite juke-joint band: The North Mississippi All-Stars.

From the 2006 Blues Festival in Clarksdale.

From Bonnaroo 2007.