Monthly Archives: March 2010

Paul Berman’s outraged attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s attackers. – By Ron Rosenbaum – Slate Magazine

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Read the entire thing. Postmodernist relativism hath removed the vigour…

In any case, Berman's portrait of the behavior of today's intellectuals when confronting the plight of Ayaan Hirsi Ali is devastating. I was going to say his portrait of certain intellectuals, because he singles out the well-respected writers Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash for their aggressive sniping and snarking at Hirsi Ali when she was and still is under threat of death. But in fact the relative silence of the rest of the intelligentsia, when confronted with the threats against her, is almost more scandalous.

via Paul Berman’s outraged attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s attackers. – By Ron Rosenbaum – Slate Magazine.

Or to paraphrase Lewis, we have made the intellectuals eunuchs, now we ask them to breed.

PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Monday, March 29, 2010

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Yesterday was Palm Sunday.

The issues of persistance, of pressing on and moving forward: the sense that Jesus was now in a process that would lead to his execution. His deliberate use of the symbolism of a king of peace, in a time of oppression, was the start of this.

II Corinthians 1.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation,

4 who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.

5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

6 If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering.

7 Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.

Mark 11?

12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.

13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

14 He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves;

16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

17 He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

18 And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.

19 And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

20 In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.

21 Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”

22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.

The identification of the almighty with the poor and disadvantaged… was not from lack of power. Coming to earth when the Roman procurators were running Judah was not from lack of timing.

And the same person who drove out the traders from the temple – and was praised as the King of Isreal — was soon to die.

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Monday, March 29, 2010.

PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Today

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The oldest boy is off to Mt Aspiring this morning for camp. At 14, it is a good thing to be exposed to the outdoors and learn about safety: in crossing rivers, kayaking, abseiling.

For these things are risky. And the high country does not forgive stupidity. It is a cause for worry.

Free speech is being shat upon in Canada. As the Ann said something like she’s not sure if it because she is conservative, a stroppy woman, or a Christian. However, the main press people seem to think she is unseemly.

I think it is time to be unseemly.

Psalm 27

1The LORD is my light and my salvation;whom shall I fear?The LORD is the stronghold of my life;of whom shall I be afraid?

2When evildoers assail meto devour my flesh —my adversaries and foes —they shall stumble and fall.

3Though an army encamp against me,my heart shall not fear;though war rise up against me,yet I will be confident.

4One thing I asked of the LORD,that will I seek after:to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,to behold the beauty of the LORD,and to inquire in his temple.

5For he will hide me in his shelterin the day of trouble;he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;he will set me high on a rock.

6Now my head is lifted upabove my enemies all around me,and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Today.

Old is good, modern is dross.

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Apparently the son has war poems next term. The best of these are old and not fashionable. In part because there has been a filter: the dross has been removed by time’s crucible. Owen is good…

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

Pro patria mori.

via Wilfred Owen – Dulce et Decorum Est – .

This is new, and from the same war, but written 90 years later….

They were rum faced, blushing young Hauraki men

half pissed and smoking last cigarettes and fags in quiet groups,

…in the jumping off trench. Young men from Waihi, Paeroa, Tauranga,

Te Puna, Katikati, Kopu and Thames.

Dutch courage be buggered, Nelson had it right all along,

this was to be his 9th time over the top…”jumping the bags,”

and the rum cut right through, and “cotton-wooled”

the terror that was to shortly come…and it would come;

they all knew it.

Mike Subritsky: Up from the fire step

But this, is just horrible.

We charged in our Storm Trooper costumes
Blinding faceless shapes through dirty glass
With rifle mounted lasers
We were jumpy
We were ready

Danny Martin: Haddock of Mass Destruction.

But Kipling is the Master. He is deeply unfashionable, and I find him somewhat prophetic.

The smoke upon your Altar dies,
  The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
   Has flown away.
What profit then to sing or slay
The sacrifice from day to day?

"We know the Shrine is void," they said.
  "The Goddess flown --
"Yet wreaths are on the altar laid --
  "The Altar-Stone
"Is black withfumes of sacrifice,
"Albeit She has Bed our eyes.

"For, it may be, if still we sing
  "And tend the Shrine,
"Some Deity on wandering wing
  "May there incline,
"And, finding all in order meet,
"Stay while we Worship at Her feet.

Kipling, L'envoi

The Ghost on the Chairman…

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Chairman Ann, that is, who is annoying the Leftist ideologues in Canuckstan.

The Left is scared witless at the thought we are laughing at them. Small wonder this latest attempt to ban humour.

via Ghost of a flea.

This is an old thought, but true. The best cure for fascism is to laugh at them, use their regulations for kindling, and turn their dignity into parody.

From Bowalley — best comment for the week.

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I’m not a Westie. I grew up in Otahuhu and Papatoetoe. But I understand this:

We Westies are a tribal lot – we support our own people and we respect those (i.e. Bennett) who’ve done their time. We’re also not stupid and we’re tired of the urban liberal cabal with their “We know what's best for you” attitude to 'the proletariat' and simultaneous distaste for the same. Ask yourself these questions: how many of the various Labour contenders attended the recent AC/DC religious experiences? How many of them would wade into an all-in at Hendo Westfield ala Bennett? How many of them would even go to Hendo Westfield?

via Bowalley Road: Outrageous Choices.

Some years ago a liberal from the left where I went to High School. When I told her, she corrected my pronouncation into Maori. Which annoyed me> I’d lived there all my lifer (to that date) and this perfumed chardonnay socailist was telling me how to pronounce the name of my area.

The West, like the South, or Otago, or Canterbury, is tribal. Most competent political parties know this. Labour has just demonstrated, as Chris Trotter points out, that they are incompetent.

So… as Cam Slater pointed out… The official Labour site dumped all over him (and no, I won’t link to them).

Do not trust princes

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And, on a day where the Democrats are promising health care, the deficit is increasing, and the news cycle spikes fear.

Psalm 146

1Praise the LORD!Praise the LORD, O my soul!2I will praise the LORD as long as I live;I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

3Do not put your trust in princes,in mortals, in whom there is no help.4When their breath departs, they return to the earth;on that very day their plans perish.

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Today.

Sometimes you should translate prince as “senator”, “member of the house” or “mayor”. The leaders of today will fade sooner than they plan to.

The fruits of a long march.

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Read the entire thing. But This is so, so much like Helengrad. This is the result of a long march through the institutions. VDH is on form

Note well the term “poor.” These are not Dickensian or Joads poor, but largely Americans who by the standards of the 1940s would be considered lucky. Partly because of globalized Chinese consumer goods, and partly redistributive practices of a half-century, our current “underclass” has access to clothes, electronics, entertainment, apartments, cell phones, transportation, etc., undreamed of by the middle class of the recent past. I live in one of the poorest areas of one of the poorest counties in a bankrupt state; and those I see poor are not like those I saw 40 years ago in the same locale.

No, the revolution is not one of the abject poor and starving storming the Bastille, but of the angry and self-righteous well-off— angry as hell that the less well-off are living lives quite differently from the very well-off. (A trodden down poor person today flies standby from San Francisco to LAX; a very rich person gets into his $50 million Gulfstream — but note modernism’s paradox: the poor person’s United Airlines pilots are as good, he gets there as safely and in some comfort, and not much later as well.)

via Works and Days » Reflections on the Revolution in America.

Now for the fruit.  Helen was in power — power that would make Obama faint — for nine years. (NZ has one legislative chamber, and she ruled it). So–

  • She lied about crown finances. We were deeply in debt and she denied it.
  • Taxation became more progressive.
  • There were more busybodies in Wellington micromanaging poorer services.
  • We lost our strike air wing.
  • We began to publicise specail forces — people who want to be in the shadows and defend us. In doing this, we betrayed our bravest men.
  • We lost the privy council. By a mere majority. And the new supreme court is already embroiled in conflicts of interest.

And Helen derided the conventional morality, childrearing, educational prospects (zoning was a disaster. NCEA was a disaster. Losing proper apprenticeships was a disaster).

The elite do not understand workers. The project their ideas onto workers. This elite — who claims to work for the oppressed — is removing the reslienence from the nation to MAKE people oppressed.

Thus the Smart worker puts his head down, shuts up, and votes for the nationalist or the right. Because the left has betrayed him.