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Books

‘Gone with the Wind’: ‘The Politics Are Uncomfortable’

June 25, 2011

CNN reports that Thursday will mark the 75th anniversary of the publication of Gone With the Wind, and love for the novel and the movie based on it still seems to be going strong. Fans dubbed “Windies” (because as one notes, it sounds better than “Goners”) have get togethers and visit Margaret Mitchell’s grave while dressed in period garb. Meanwhile, back at my college, I taught Kipling to my Brit survey class yesterday — we read “Man Who Would Be King“, “White Man’s Burden“, and “Recessional.” In a full semester class, I’d follow that with a week on Heart of Darkness, but it’s a 5-week term, so there’s really no time for novels. I don’t think you can teach the survey without discussing the Empire, and Kipling works as well for that as anyone. But GWtW and Kipling’s works are problematic today, and in the CNN piece, film critic Molly Haskell notes that in the case of the Mitchell novel, “the politics make us uncomfortable.” And the same could be (and has been) said for Kipling — a former classmate of mine once dismissed the Nobel winner as a troglodyte while admitting she had never actually studied his work, or

Quote of the Day: The Early Days of Business

June 24, 2011

By Mike Gray

Quote of the Day: The Early Days of Business

THE VERY FIRST BUSINESSES Many, many years ago there was no business on Earth. This is because the Earth was primarily molten lava, which is not a good economic climate. Office furniture would melt in a matter of seconds. Then the Earth started to cool, and tiny one-celled animals — the amigo, the paramedic, the rotarian — began to form. Over the course of several million years, these animals learned to join together to form primitive corporations, called “jellyfish,” which were capable of only the most basic business activities, such as emitting waste and eating lunch. By today’s standards, these corporations were very unsophisticated: if, for example, you mentioned the phrase “Dow Jones Industrial Average” to them, they would have no idea what you were talking about. They would probably sting you. DID DINOSAURS HAVE BUSINESSES? Nobody can really say for sure, because the Ice Age destroyed all their records. But paleontologists now believe that, yes, dinosaurs probably did have businesses. Not the Brontosaurus, of course. That would be ridiculous. How would he hold his briefcase? But the Tyrannosaurus Rex has those funny little arms, which would have been perfect. Paleontologists think he was probably in Sales. PRIMITIVE HUMAN BUSINESSES

Sometimes It Takes a Lawsuit: Christopher Horner Sues NASA

June 22, 2011

By Mike Gray

Sometimes It Takes a Lawsuit: Christopher Horner Sues NASA

By Mike Gray Dr. Hansen engages in high-profile public advocacy with regard to global warming and energy policy, directly trading on his platform as a NASA astronomer to gain interest and attention. This outside employment and other activities relating to his work have included consulting, highly compensated speeches, six-figure “prizes”, a commercial book, advising Al Gore on his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and, lately, advising litigants on suing states and the federal government. — Christopher Horner Horner’s intention is to get at information about Hansen which may prove a conflict of interest: This afternoon I am filing a lawsuit against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in federal district court in the District of Columbia on behalf of The American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center. On the heels of obtaining a court order earlier late last month compelling the University of Virginia to produce the long-sought ‘Hockey Stick’-related records, ATI’s transparency project now seeks to force NASA to release ethics records for taxpayer-funded global warming activist Dr. James Hansen, specifically those pertaining to his outside employment, revenue generation, and advocacy activities. NASA seems to think some folks might be above the law due to how high a perch

“Two Years Before the Mast”: An American–and Christian–Classic

June 21, 2011

By Lars Walker

“Two Years Before the Mast”: An American–and Christian–Classic

I wouldn’t call it a suspenseful book. And yet Two Years Before the Mast kept me in suspense. I wouldn’t call it a book that’s hard to put down, and yet I read it in great chunks, reluctant to stop. It’s an old book, and it’s written in the manner of an old book. And yet this reader felt the living presence of an intelligent, brave-hearted and sympathetic narrator at his elbow, one he is glad to have become acquainted with. In 1834, Richard Henry Dana was a Harvard undergraduate. Stricken with the measles, he recovered with his sight damaged, unable to read much. He chose a radical form of therapy. …a two or three year voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed likely to cure. This was no pleasure cruise. “Before the mast” is a nautical term meaning the forecastle area, the place where common seamen bunked, where officers went seldom, and the captain almost never. Life before the

How Dumb Can You Get?

June 21, 2011

By Mike Gray

By Mike Gray But if the generations coming out of our schools do not know our past, do not who we are or what we have done as a people, how will they come to love America, refute her enemies or lead her confidently? This appalling ignorance among American young must be laid at the feet of an education industry that has consumed trillions of tax dollars in recent decades. — Pat Buchanan The test scores are in and the results are disappointing. Pat Buchanan notes the profound ignorance of history the students seem to exhibit: “Is our children learning?” as George W. Bush so famously asked. Well, no, they is not learning, especially the history of their country, the school subject at which America’s young perform at their worst. On history tests given to 31,000 pupils by the National Assessment of Education Progress, the “Nation’s Report Card,” most fourth-graders could not identify a picture of Abraham Lincoln or a reason why he was important. Most eighth-graders could not identify an advantage American forces had in the Revolutionary War. Twelfth-graders did not know why America entered World War II or that China was North Korea’s ally in the Korean War.

The Mob Quells the Mobocracy: ‘The Syndic’

June 17, 2011

By Mike Gray

The Mob Quells the Mobocracy: ‘The Syndic’

By Mike Gray They had what they called laissez-faire, and it worked for a while until they got to tinkering with it. They demanded things called protective tariffs, tax remissions, subsidies — regulation, regulation, regulation, always of the other fellow. But there were enough bankers on all sides for everybody to be somebody else’s other fellow. Coercion snowballed and the Government lost public acceptance. They had a thing called the public debt which I can’t begin to explain to you except to say that it was something written on paper and that it raised the cost of everything tremendously. Well, believe me or not, they didn’t just throw away the piece of paper or scratch out the writing on it. They let it ride until ordinary people couldn’t afford the pleasant things in life. — C. M. Kornbluth, The Syndic Jeff Riggenbach has an article on Mises Daily about a largely-forgotten science fiction writer of the ’50s whose political views gave every indication of sympathizing with Communism, and yet the philosophy found in one of his books marks him as a libertarian. Kornbluth’s The Syndic depicts events occurring . . . . about 150 years from now, sometime in the

“Decent fellow, in his way. But not one of us” — Class Warfare in the Works of Agatha Christie

June 17, 2011

By Mike Gray

“Decent fellow, in his way. But not one of us” — Class Warfare in the Works of Agatha Christie

By Mike Gray I have just been reading Agatha Christie’s short stories. But to enjoy her fully today, I suspect, you need to be a social historian — or a novelist. In everything she wrote, she employed one deep secret of her craft. But she may not even have been conscious of it. It took 70 years of cultural change to reveal it. That secret is, simply, that she shocks the reader with endless social transgressions. Her every story is coded with social prejudice and her characters are class-labelled on arrival. Whenever her characters are in conflict, it’s not simply a case of whodunnit? A little class war is also being played out. — John Yeoman According to Yeoman, the secret of Agatha Christie’s success lay in who comprised the bulk of her readership: Given that Christie’s readers were largely lower middle class, they must have gained great satisfaction in seeing their social betters unmasked as rogues. Xenophobia and racial prejudice are everywhere in Christie, and provide rich opportunities for social conflict. Nobody born south of the English Channel can be entirely trusted. A rich American or ex-colonial might be admitted cautiously to one’s parlour but only once the ladies

Quote of the Day: Frederic Bastiat on “Organized Injustice”

June 17, 2011

By Mike Gray

Quote of the Day: Frederic Bastiat on “Organized Injustice”

You say: “There are persons who have no money,” and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder. With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice. — Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850)

“The Magic of Words” – Prose & Poetry Update

June 14, 2011

By Daniel Crandall

“The Magic of Words” – Prose & Poetry Update

In the 21st century science reigns. Some, however still believe magic exists in words. Computer scientist, Anu Garg is one of them. He’s fascinated by the magic of words and created a website dedicated to the “world of words.” He and hundreds others explore such questions “Where do words come from? Who made them up? Who dictated that a rectangular opening in a wall was to be called a window?” His love for words and belief in their magic led him to create Wordsmith.org. You can see a sample for “Wordsmith.org” below. A single word has a magic of its own. Words collected into a story or poem takes that magic to a whole new level. I hope you enjoy this weeks collection of writers whose work brings a bit a magic into a world dominated by science. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him “personal.” Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and

A Preview of ‘The Days of Lamech’

June 14, 2011

By Mike Gray

By Mike Gray Good news! Jon Saboe is offering advance previews of his upcoming novel, The Days of Lamech, available for purchase very soon. Read the excerpts here (PDF, 32 pages, 303 KB). There’s a The Days of Lamech Facebook page here. And Jon’s official website is here.

Quote of the Day: Erich Fromm on the “Basic Question”

June 13, 2011

By Mike Gray

Quote of the Day: Erich Fromm on the “Basic Question”

In comparing Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Orwell’s 1984 Fromm notices that: . . . . there is one basic question common to the three negative utopias. The question is a philosophical, anthropological and psychological one, and perhaps also a religious one. It is: can human nature be changed in such a way that man will forget his longing for freedom, for dignity, for integrity, for love—that is to say, can man forget that he is human? Or does human nature have a dynamism which will react to the violation of these basic human needs by attempting to change an inhuman society into a human one? It must be noted that the three authors do not take the simple position of psychological relativism which is common to so many social scientists today; they do not start out with the assumption that there is no such thing as human nature; that there is no such thing as qualities essential to man; and that man is born as nothing but a blank sheet of paper on which any given society writes its text. They do assume man has an intense striving for love, for justice, for truth, for solidarity, and

Quote of the Day: Jack Cashill on “Progressives”

June 12, 2011

By Mike Gray

Quote of the Day: Jack Cashill on “Progressives”

* Progressives do not set out to do evil. They set out to do good. * They do their good in a world in which God is irrelevant, and “everything is permitted.” * With God out of the picture, they are free to do good by their own lights, better than it has ever been done before. * The “good” they devise quickly calcifies into orthodoxy. * Lesser mortals who fail to heed the new dogma risk reeducation. * Reeducation can be brutal. An “over-sensibility for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires,” said Burke shrewdly, lead to the “greatest crimes.” * Once committed to those desires, progressives don’t look back. The dead, the damaged, and the aborted are ignored or quickly forgotten. * Unwilling to undo or even question, they respond to disaster with sad and superficial correctives like mosquito nets or condoms or more “education.” * Unbound by God, progressives are thus also unbound by any traditions that claim divine inspiration. * To the degree that those traditions threaten their progress, progressives are hostile to those traditions, specifically Judeo-Christianity and its twin towers of resolve, America and Israel. In the worldwide culture war, our progressive friends honor

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Books

‘Gone with the Wind’: ‘The Politics Are Uncomfortable’

Quote of the Day: The Early Days of Business

Sometimes It Takes a Lawsuit: Christopher Horner Sues NASA

“Two Years Before the Mast”: An American–and Christian–Classic

How Dumb Can You Get?

The Mob Quells the Mobocracy: ‘The Syndic’

“Decent fellow, in his way. But not one of us” — Class Warfare in the Works of Agatha Christie

“The Magic of Words” – Prose & Poetry Update

A Preview of ‘The Days of Lamech’

Quote of the Day: Erich Fromm on the “Basic Question”

Quote of the Day: Jack Cashill on “Progressives”

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