“Because its Christmas Eve, not Christmas Steve.” Coming soon to a surreally vast rightwing conspiracy near you.
This essay from Ross Douthat is brilliant. Ostensibly a review of Avatar, its really a bright light exposing the meaningless guff that is popular pantheism and naive nature worship (as opposed from serious conservationism and environmental protection). (more…)
Because tearing down a building with a giant backhoe seems like too much fun to be “work”, what? (more…)
As I was singing in the bath this AM–why do the streets have no name, do you think? Negligence in the municipal roads departments?–I pulled up from the treasure vaults of memory something I’ve been meaning to tell you. (more…)
Dear Times and Seasons,
A comment at your web site by one of your writers, Frank McIntyre, filled me with disappointment, but not so full that there wasn’t room left for disgust. Those feelings were particularly intense because they were in response to reading something so ugly in a place intended to interest faithful Latter-day Saints. In order to express his indifference to the material stocked on shelves of Deseret Book, Mr. McIntyre chose to add more color to the expression of his sentiments by claiming “I have no dog in this fight.” How can Mr. McIntyre be so indifferent to the cruelty of dog fighting that he thinks it is acceptable to use such a phrase?
Suppose one of his children heard that phrase and wanted him to explain what it meant. Imagine their horror as they came to understand that below the surface, their father’s mind is laced with gambling and bloodshed. He should spend some time volunteering at a shelter for abused animals so he can fully feel the inappropriateness of his words and thoughts. Alternatively, if he has a free weekend coming up, he and I could meet at Club Gallistico in San Juan to consider some—ah—economic propositions. He’d better bring plenty of green, because I don’t want to fly home with a pocketful of IOUs.
Most insincerely,
John R. Mansfield
“The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death.”
-De Maistre
here are the bullet points of why I love Thanksgiving:
• It’s not commercialized because there are no gifts. Kay Jewelers has not yet figured out how to pimp-out American womenfolk for Thanksgiving (“every drumstick begins with second-base” never caught on as a slogan).
• It’s America’s only nationalist holiday. The Fourth of July, President’s Day, and even Veterans’ and Memorial Day are celebrations of the nation-state created by the American founding. In short, our other holidays are about patriotism, not nationalism. Thanksgiving meanwhile celebrates a pre-constitutional relationship with the Almighty. I wouldn’t quite say it’s a pre-modern or blood-and-soil holiday, but it is about Providence and the great gift being here, in this place, is. A little mystic nationalism is a good and healthy thing because it provides the emotional sinew that helps us hold onto our patriotism. This country is great and good for many reasons. But one reason for its greatness, too often forgotten, is that it is ours.
• It’s all about family, formal and informal. The Thanksgiving table is one of the few times every year where you can define your own little nation-state, your own little Hobbit warren, in your own little Shire. I’m not saying that we lose our concern for our fellow man, but we are reminded that life’s joys come not from abstract people, but real ones.
• Left-over turkey sandwiches are as pure a distillation of awesomeness as man has ever conspired to produce.
This does not make cheery reading.
[The following is taken from pages 12-15 of Lighter-Than-Air Flight edited by Lt. Col. C.V. Glines, USAF, published by Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965.]
The preliminary flights in a captive balloon were preludes to the next logical step in the Montgolfier experiments—free flight. But it was not a matter of simply cutting a rope and letting the intrepid aeronauts go with the wind. The King of France, Louis XVI, would not permit any such manned flight to take place. The Marquis François-Laurent d’Arlendes,an influential friend of de Rozier, interceded and gained an audience with the King. Pointing out that the first manned tethered flights had been successful and that the animals used in the free flight had all survived, d’Arlendes pleaded that two men should now be allowed to ascend for the glory of France.
Oxford has gone online with a collection of WWI poetry here.
What is going on with Google? They often put up alternative graphics for a day commemorating holidays or anniversaries of one thing or another, but last week they started marking Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary and they haven’t stopped. On Wednesday, it was Big Bird’s legs. On Thursday, they were still at it with Cookie Monster taking our queries. One Friday, Ernie and Burt were up on the home page, perhaps doubling as a celebration of It’s a Wonderful Life. Over the weekend I had no need to search web pages, but today, Monday, they are still at it with the vampire who counts things. Which seven-year-old did Brin and Page leave in charge of the store? Probably one who no one has seen in thirty years.