Balogh Kálmán Gipsy Cimbalom Band Perform "From Danube"

Gypsy quadroon that I am, I had to attend a concert by the above, whittled down to a trio, who played for free last night at nearby once-Catholic Nazareth College's lovely Linehan Chapel.

A Visit to a Newly-Erected Roadside Shrine

I took the kids to the site of this terrible and enraging accident that occurred in the town next door on Sunday morning, to pray and to learn a life lesson — Community mourns loss of Fairport teacher Heather Boyum, Woman arrested for DWI in fatal Penfield crash stayed at scene, Good Samaritan performed CPR on Fairport teacher. The stupidity that robbed a man of his wife, children of their mother, and students of their teacher:

Boyum, 40, was riding her bike in the shoulder at around 7:45 a.m. Sunday when she was hit by a motorcycle driven by Mark Scerbo and thrown off of the bike.

Witnesses told investigators that she hit the road and was then run over by a car driven by Scerbo’s girlfriend, 23-year-old Megan Merkel, who continued driving after the accident but was later stopped by Webster police. She was arrested for driving while intoxicated, and may face other charges.

Investigators say that Scerbo, 22, was driving his motorcycle in a reckless manner, speeding up and passing Merkel’s car and then slowing down and doing “wheelies.”

Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.

America's Funniest Catholic

We'll soon learn rather he's an archbishop or a comedian — U.S. eagerly awaits comedy slam between Catholic funny guys Dolan and Colbert. From the article:

Comedian Stephen Colbert grew up in a devout Catholic family and it is thanks to his mother’s faith that he found the strength to deal with the terrible blow dealt when his father and two brothers died in an aeroplane crash when he was just 10 years old: My mother “taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us,” Colbert told The New York Times earlier this year. “What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain — it’s that the pain is actually a gift. What’s the option? God doesn’t really give you another choice.” Today, Colbert, who was born in 1964, is a satirical writer and theatre and television comedian and owes his popularity above all to the famous “Colbert Report”, a talk show which targets politicians and culture, economy and showbiz celebrities, including the Jesuit Fr. Martin. Married and father of three, he is an active member of his New Jersey parish and also deals with issues linked to Catholic life and community.

Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) “Dolan is certainly no slouch when it comes to faith, and he’s also pretty good in the humour department - especially when he is joking at his own expense, usually about his ample girth,” [a] Washington Post journalist joked in Wednesday’s article.

“What weighs on me the most,” - Dolan said in an interview with New York Times last December - “is the caricature of the Catholic Church as crabby, nay-saying, down in the dumps, discouraging, on the run. And I’m thinking if there is anything that should be upbeat, affirming, positive, joyful, it should be people of faith.”

Turns Out President Obama Does Have Black American Ancestry

Through his white mother, of course — President Obama related to country’s first enslaved man.

J.S. Bach's Magnificat, Performed by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Directed by Ton Koopman

One Marian masterpiece deserves another, this one by a Protestant, that is if you consider Lutherans Protestant, and I don't, having been raised one.

Disarming Violent Criminals

CounterPuncher Patrick Higgins's spirited leftist defense of gun rights informs us of the above "billboard [that] was raised in Idaho [!] by a libertarian organization placing the face of the Aurora shooting suspect beside that of President Obama" — Gun Rights: From the Black Panthers to the NRA. The author continues,

The text surrounding James Holmes’s reads: “KILLS 12 IN A MOVIE THEATER WITH AN ASSAULT RIFLE. EVERYONE FREAKS OUT.” The text surrounding Obama’s reads: “KILLS THOUSANDS WITH HIS FOREIGN POLICY. WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.”

The reaction of the Village Voice—“extremely offensive,” one headline states—to the billboard is exemplary of the chronic softness of liberalism on issues of war. In the media overall, this softness has led to the current emphasis on civilian gun control, which is an emphasis that is now actively removing the spotlight from the violence of the state while increasing fear of the general public. Surely the Village Voice that hosted the late, great Alexander Cockburn would never have so unforgivably favored etiquette over truth.

Would the Voice have been outrages had the same indictment been leveled against Mr. Obama's predecessor, and, to be would these Idaho libertarians posted the same billboard? An emphatic "no" to the first question and a "perhaps" top the second; libertarians tend to be more consistent than either liberals or conservatives. And even if the answer is "no" to the second question, this billboard, and the national discussion it raises, is an important development.

A "Hard Left" Defense of the Second Amendment

CounterPuncher Patrick Higgins gives it, reminding us, "The modern day gun rights movement was not pioneered by the NRA—although I admit it wouldn’t matter to me if it had been—but by the Black Panthers, whose co-founder, Huey Newton, found genuine protective value in the Second Amendment at a street-level moment when some cops would likely not have otherwise hesitated to beat him to death" — Gun Rights: From the Black Panthers to the NRA.

Olympic Dissent

Peter Hitchens, Christopher's younger and wiser brother, writes, "I wish people would stop telling me that I should enjoy the Olympics, or be proud of them, or think that they will in some way benefit this country" — Join the Smiley Cult of the Five Circles? Sorry, but I Have a Democratic Right To Be Bored (and I'm Exercising It While I Still Can).

Whither Anglo-Saxondom?

"Traditionalism in Britain is committing voluntary euthanasia," says Brendan O’Neill, lamenting the fact that the "stiff, traditional little country whose grey-haired old Queen has just celebrated 60 years on the throne and where men in bowler hats will say, 'Evening, sir,' as they pass you in the street" is only a figment of outsiders' imaginations — Britain Abolishes Itself. He concludes that "there is much in modern Britain that is stuffy and which could do with being reformed" and rightly suggests that "there is even room for asking whether marriage should be denationalized, turned from a state affair into a private matter for individuals and communities (including gay ones)."

Thomas Fleming rightly argues that "the United States was founded by British people, that our language and traditions are English, and that immigrants and aliens, while welcome, have a duty to assimilate to our way of life" — This is Not Your Grandfather’s Country. He concludes that "it is not enough to reject the Anti-Americans--the Obamas and Imanuels--but also the pseudo-Americans who try to harness whatever decent instincts are left and put them into the service of an equally pernicious ideology of American imperialism."

A New Book by Clyde Wilson and Brion McClanahan

The former says its "goal has been to establish a conservative tradition of thought that, from the War of Independence to the mid-20th century, defended the decentralist, laissez-faire, and non-interventionist regime bequeathed by the best of the Founding Fathers" — Conservatism Without Alexander, Abraham, and Irving. An excerpt:

Conservatism, for us, has been a powerful and eloquent train of thinkers who have opposed the Hamilton/Lincoln regime of state-capitalism and the Roosevelt/Bush/Irving Kristol agenda of "global democracy." Our conservatism stands strongly contra to the historic Republican party and to "neoconservative" imperialism. In this we are not so much out-of-step as some may think. Russell Kirk, "the father of modern conservatism," considered Alexander Hamilton to be no conservative but rather a dubious "innovator." And more than once Kirk lamented that "the conservative disposition" in the United States has too often been misunderstood by identifying it with rent-seeking behaviour.

Between Pennsylvanians and Yankees

The folks who settled Penn Yan, New York, thus its name, a town we visited last week along with nearby Hammondsport, "the coolest small town in America" according to Budget Travel magazine. There we had ourselves a nice simple lunch complimented by two delicious glasses of Riesling from the local Lime Berry Winery before finishing our circumnavigation of lovely Keuka Lake. On the way there and back, numerous Gadsden flags were to be seen, as well as many a Ron Paul sign, and nary a one for any other candidate. Lord, I'm happy to have settled in the Finger Lakes region.

Supporting Your Local Brewery

Tried a can of Dog Bite High Gravity Lager last week. Never again! Localism only goes so far. This horrendous "high alcohol malt liquor product" is made by Rock Wall Brewing Co., a subsidiary of the Genesee Brewing Company. Another subsidiary, the Dundee Brewing Company (sorry, no girly pic), is at the other end of the spectrum, producing craft beers.

The old standby, Genesee Cream Ale, which my grandmother enjoyed but none of us kids would drink unless we had to, and my new favorite, the "aggressively hopped ale with primary flavor characteristics of floral and citrus bitterness" Dundee India Pale Ale, are my two beers of choice.

Claudio Monteverdi'sVespro della Beata Vergine Performed by Chœur de Chambre de Namur and Ensemble La Fenice, Directed by Jean Tubéry

Something splendid in honor of today's memorial — Siege of Rhodes. Victory over the Turks through Our Lady’s intercession. I believe the posted video of Claudio Monteverdi's monumental Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610, one of mankind's highest musical achievements, is the best available online.

Catholic Stuff

"'For many' or 'for all'?" asks Chiesa's Sandro Magister, answering, "The right answer is the first" — "Pro Multis." The Pope's Translation Is Gaining Support.

Catholic News Agency's David Kerr on "a rising star within the world of poetry" who said, "Until two years ago, I was a really committed atheist and I really hated the Catholic Church" — Former atheist poet reveals details of her Catholic conversion.

A conservative blog for peace sums it up — The Catholic Church: here comes everybody.

A Nation of Localists

The New Beginning brings us this National(ist) Public Radio story from last year — Home Sweet Home: The New American Localism. The openeing blurb: "You can talk about the global village, a mobile society and the World Wide Web all you want, but many in our country seem to be turning toward a New American Localism."

Mr. Obama's War on Africa

The New American's Joe Wolverton, II reports on its escalation — U.S. Drones Spotted Over Somalia; Pres. Obama Issues Executive Order.

"If we don’t police the Islamic world, who can?"

"Russia, China, and India," answers The American Conservative's William W. Chip — Neighborhood Watch.

"Right on Crime"

"Conservatives in increasing numbers are moving away from their decades-long support for long prison terms for criminals;" welcome news reported by Townhall.com's Michael Barone — Conservatives Backtrack on Long Prison Sentences.

"Last year, Newt Gingrich, William Bennett and Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese endorsed a 'right on crime' initiative, calling for rehabilitation measures rather than prison sentences for nonviolent offenders," the author notes. "They joined liberals who have been dismayed that America has just about the highest rate of incarceration of any nation in history."

The Auroch

Interesting story on "a two-decade breeding experiment" on "domestic cattle sought out for their 'primitive' characteristics... to recreate 'in appearance and behavior' the living likeness of the animals’ extinct wild ancestor" — Heavy Breeding.

"Amazing Grace" Performed by Doc Watson & Chris Thile

Garrison Keillor reminds us that today is John Newton's birthday — Amazing Grace.

I was blind but now I see; rest in peace, Doc.

Reining In The Pentagon

"Eight ideas to keep America solvent and safe" offered by The American Conservative's Jon Basil Utley — Sequestration: The Way to Cut Defense Waste. He reminds us, "The Complex loves to equate a few thousand Muslim terrorists with the giant former Soviet threat with thousands of nukes, half of Europe and a vast leftist network in America and Western Europe."

Henry Kissinger, James Baker, George Shultz, Eliot Cohen, John Bolton, et al.

The New America's Thomas R. Eddlem notes "that Mitt Romney has gathered a coterie of establishment neoconservatives interested in war with Iran" — Insiders: Mitt Romney's Neocon, Hawkish Advisors on Foreign Policy.

White Knights

"Of the 12 people killed in the Aurora theater shooting, four of them were men who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect their girlfriends" — Women Who Survived Theater Shooting Grieve for Hero Boyfriends.

Lisa Hannigan Performs "Paper House," "Safe Travels (Don't Die),""Passenger," and "Knots"

Are Uniformed Lives More Valuable Than Those of Civilians?

"If a neighbor or an assuming [sic] pedestrian would have walked in that door or, God forbid, a first responder, they would have sustained significant injuries and/or lost their life," said FBI special agent Jim Yacone of the "30 explosive devices found in the apartment of suspect James Holmes" — Search Continues For Clues In Shooting Aftermath.

I was taken a bit aback when I heard that on National(ist) Public Radio the other day. Were I a law enforcement officer, I would have begun, "If a first responder would have walked in that door or, God forbid, a neighbor or an unassuming pedestrian..." Isn't it the job description of a "first responder" to take risks to protect us everyday people?

I've noticed this trend in Imperial America. It seems the media encourages us to mourn more for the uniformed who die in the line of duty than for innocent civilians. Maybe it started on 9/11. Yes, the NYFD's loss was that day terrible, but it was also honorable and heroic in that that died line of duty. The deaths of workers slaughtered that day was more horrifying because it was utterly senseless.

The trend either started or continues in our foreign wars. The Praetorian Guard are now heroes to a man (and a women - and don't you dare say heroine). I've heard collateral damage, i.e. the slaughter of innocent civilians, explained away as necessary so as not to put our beloved "troops" in any more danger than they are already in. Wait, weren't Operation Enduring Freedom and the Iraq War, if not about protecting our freedoms at home (which no one with a triple-digit IQ could ever believe), at least about bringing freedoms to long-oppressed peoples? In that case, weren't our beloved "troops" there to protect and serve innocent Iraqis and Afghans? Shouldn't they have been more than willing to put their own uniformed lives on the line so that innocent men, women, and children be spared?

Now that would have been heroic. (It would be natural in a war fought on the home front against an invading force, the only surely just war. If enemy Canadian invaders were holed up in your neighbor's home and you suspected his wife and children were there, you wouldn't call in an airstrike. You'd wait it out, even if it meant placing yourself in more danger.) But such heroism can hardly be expected at home or abroad in a regimented America that has melted at the sight of a man in uniform.

Defending Ronald Reagan to the Hard Left

"Reagan and his administration are not above criticism, but Reagan most certainly is not to blame for the financial crisis or for the neoconservative wars for American hegemony," Paul Craig Roberts reminds his fellow CounterPunchers — The Left, Reagan and Cockburn. An excerpt:

The Reagan administration’s interventions in Grenada and Nicaragua were not, as is sometimes claimed, precursors to Clinton’s war on Serbia and the Bush and Obama wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, with more waiting in the wings. Reagan saw his interventions in the context of the Monroe Doctrine, not as an opening bid for world hegemony.

The purpose of Reagan’s interventions was to convince the Soviets that there would be no more territorial gains for communism. The interventions were part of Reagan’s strategy of bringing the Soviets to the table to negotiate the end of the cold war. Reagan believed that getting the Soviets to negotiate would be more difficult if they were still making territorial gains or gains that the Soviets might perceive in that way. Possibly, Reagan’s advisers were wrong to put a Marxist interpretation on political events in Grenada and Nicaragua, but that is the way Reagan understood them.

When Reagan understood what the Israelis had lured him into in Lebanon, he pulled out. Reagan opposed war as an instrument of American hegemony. It is the neoconservatives who use war to achieve hegemony. Reagan was not a neoconservative.

The left-wing is more interested to blame Reagan for the financial crisis than to understand the crisis. The left-wing accuses Reagan of deregulating the financial system and of setting up a “Plunge Protection Team” to rig financial markets.

An Old Rightist Eulogy of a Hard Leftist

Justin Raimondo rightly calls his death "an irreplaceable loss not only personally, for those who knew him, but for the broad 'progressive' movement, where his populist brand of anarcho-syndicalism — the leftist equivalent of 'crunchy conservatism' — set him apart from the bullhorn-shouters and sloganeering ideologues of the haute cuisine Left" — Alexander Cockburn, RIP.

Quantum Mechanics and God

Physicist Stephen Barr says that it "doesn’t provide an argument for the existence of God" but does "provid[e] an argument against the philosophy called materialism (or 'physicalism'), which is the main intellectual opponent of belief in God in today’s world" — Does Quantum Physics Make it Easier to Believe in God?

An Hour of American Music

From Auntie Beeb — BBC - Later... Folk America. Here's the playlist:

1. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss ~ Gone, Gone, Gone
2. Carolina Chocolate Drops ~ Trouble in your mind
3. Chatham County Line ~ The Carolinian
4. The Blind Boys of Alabama ~ Run On
5. Odetta ~ You Gotta Know Him
6. Lucinda Williams ~ Overtime
7. Hot Club of Cowtown ~ Diga Diga Do
8. Devon Sproule ~ Old Virginia Block
9. Alvin Youngblood Hart ~ Tallahatcha
10. Emmylou Harris ~ Wildwood Flower
11. Son of Dave ~ Hellhound
12. Norah Jones ~ Cold Cold Heart
13. Buddy Guy ~ Crawling King Snake
14. The Nightwatchman ~ One Man Revolution
15. Old Crow Medicine Show ~ Tell It To Me
16. Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band ~ Graveyard Shift
17. Amy LaVere ~ Killing Him
18. Johnny Cash ~ Get Rhythm

Carolina Chocolate Drops' "Country Girl" Music Video

At last night's show, Rhiannon Giddens explained that she wrote this song after traveling and missing home, and to counter what people know of the South from television programming. "Ain't nothing quite like living in the South; oh honey shut your mouth."

A Quick Review of Last Night's Show

It's pretty humbling when the generation after yoursis shown to do a far better job carrying on tradition than yours. The Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Water Street Music Hall was about as good as a show can get. The musicianship was so stellar that even my wife, a foreigner for the most part unfamiliar with American Old-time, sat enthralled through the whole show.

The Prickers were perfect as an opening act. The local band's new line-up wisely replaces the electric bass guitar with a tuba! I was unfamiliar with all but one of the songs, but the tunes were incredibly catchy and accessible. It's hard to pigeonhole the band; they sound like nothing I've ever heard before. The old-time banjo and fiddle are supplemented by horns and organ at times almost soulful but with the intensity of punk rock. The Drops' Hubby Jenkins came out to watch and capture some of their performance on his cell phone, which I thought was nice. Even nicer was Dom Flemons' joining them with his pan-flute for a number.

They did a great job softening up the audience for the main act. I was a bit skeptical of the new line-up. No more. YouTube's little screens do not do justice to the intensity and showmanship of a Carolina Chocolate Drops live performance. The two guys and two gals who form the band are natural entertainers, with loads of geniality and graciousness. Who'd have guessed Rhiannon Giddens would sing in Scottish Gaelic? They are also educators, teaching a largely white audience about old-time black music and how, musically speaking at least, genres were never as segregated as we are taught to think. The highlight for me was their cover of this number — June Carter & Johnny Cash - Jackson.

They finished with a few genuine compliments to our city, mentioning Dibella's Old Fashioned Submarines, Record Archive and House of Guitars, and promising to come back. I look forward to that day.

Requiem for a CounterPuncher

"Our friend and comrade Alexander Cockburn died last night in Germany, after a fierce two-year long battle against cancer," writes Jeffrey St. Clair of the great "hard left" anti-statist journalist — Farewell, Alex, My Friend. Mr. St. Clair continues:

Alex kept his illness a tightly guarded secret. Only a handful of us knew how terribly sick he truly was. He didn’t want the disease to define him. He didn’t want his friends and readers to shower him with sympathy. He didn’t want to blog his own death as Christopher Hitchens had done. Alex wanted to keep living his life right to the end. He wanted to live on his terms. And he wanted to continue writing through it all, just as his brilliant father, the novelist and journalist Claud Cockburn had done. And so he did. His body was deteriorating, but his prose remained as sharp, lucid and deadly as ever.

Carolina Chocolate Drops Perform "Old Corn Likker" and "No Man's Mama"

The Prickers Perform "Gotta Have You" and "Loveliest"

Local talent opening for the Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Water Street Music Hall tomorrow.

From the Ruins of Empire

"Why was Western imperialism initially so successful, why was it increasingly resented by its subject peoples, and why and how did they come finally to develop or recover their own nationhood to the point at which some of them – China and India, for example – now look like overtaking the West economically, while elsewhere an apparently resurgent Islam threatens and challenges it culturally?" are the questions answered by the book reviewed here — Revolt in the West, remake in Asia.

Thomas Fleming on the President's Comments on the Aurora Massacre

Mr. Obama says he has personally selected targets for drone attacks that have killed women and children, but now he claims to be upset over the death of 12 people he did not know and had nothing to do with killing. Perhaps he should save his sadness for the victims of his aggression and leave the victims' families in peace.

The New Beginning provides the link — America the Sick.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, "Milwaukee Blues," "No Man's Mama," "Boodle-De-Bum-Bum," "Last Chance," "Leaving Eden," "Brigg's Corn Shucking Jig," & More

The missus and I will see them at the Water Street Music Hall this weekend. The New Beginning is deserving of many thanks for having introduced them to this blogger several years ago while I was in exile. They don't make 'em like the Carolina Chocolate Drops any more.

Steve Sailer on Olympic Totalitarianism

Anybody familiar with Olympic history would realize that lots of countries have tried to maximize medals over the years, often with much success.

The most obvious strategy is one followed by East Germany and China: it's much easier to win medals in women's events. Outside of gymnastics and a few other sports, the number of girls who, deep down inside, really want to do what it takes to win is smaller. So, focus on macho sports for women, such as women's weightlifting.

I recall an interview with a lady shotputter from China at a recent Olympics. She said she'd always wanted to be a veterinarian when she was a child, but a bunch of state athletic experts came to her elementary school, measured all the children in various ways, and then told her she was going to grow up to be a shotputter. She didn't want to be a shotputter, she wanted to be a veterinarian, but nobody cared about her opinion. So, now she was a lady shotputter.

Women's Olympic sports are full of uplifting and empowering stories like that.

Also, as East Germany demonstrated, giving your women lots of male hormones helps more than giving your men lots of male hormones.

For sports, such as "women's" gymnastics that have a minimum age for female competitors, because T&A slows down how fast a girl can spin, lie (as China does).

It also helps to have a totalitarian system. For example, Cuba is a poor country, but it wins lots of Olympic medals. One reason is because the government channels youths into various Olympic sports, instead of letting them all play soccer like in other countries. Cuba is too small to win the soccer World Cup, but it can win gold at less popular sports.

The above is reason enough to boycott the globalist spectacle — Nate Silver isn't cynical enough.

Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium Sung by the Tallis Scholars, Directed by Peter Philips

The New Beginning posts — Sigh. The Advertising... I find it hilariously ironic, and the quotes are great; this piece is truly "one of the most remarkable achievements of the human brain" as the conductor says. The full piece — The King's Singers - Spem In Alium.

If This Is First-Degree Sex Abuse...

... then nothing is "first-degree sex abuse" — Suspect in foot touching charged. Weird, creepy, and deserving of a punch in the face? Yes. First-degree sex abuse? No.

An Amish Tragedy

"Their victim-impact statements show that they have more compassion and mercy than you deserve," said the judge at the sentencing after a local "accident that killed six people and a dog" whose anniversary is marked today — A year of tolerance has passed.

"Maybe if somebody had forgiven the imprisoned driver for his first transgressions years ago the July accident never would have happened," said one of the Amish.

Race Realism

The American Conservative's Ron Unz on the idea "that IQ scores for different populations are largely fixed and hereditary, and that these—rather than economic or governmental structures—tend to determine the long-term wealth of a given country" — Race, IQ, and Wealth.

This seems rather non-controversial to me. There are always huge differences among individuals. You'll likely never in your life meet a white person with an IQ higher than that of Nigerian Philip Emeagwali.

The left freaks out at this idea for two reasons. First, it doesn't like to think of people as individuals, but rather as members of groups. Second, it wrongly equates intelligence with virtue, and wrongly sees the less intelligent as morally inferior.

The Whites Perform "Lonesome Wind Blues," "Good Morning Country Rain," "I'm Just A Use To Be To You," & "Mansion Over The Hilltop"

"White Girl Bleed A Lot"

Thomas Sowell quotes a "phrase [that] was spoken by a member of a mob of young blacks who attacked whites at random at a Fourth of July celebration in Milwaukee last year" — Are Race Riots News? He continues:

What I was appalled to learn, in the course of my research, was that such race riots have occurred in other cities across the United States in recent years -- and that the national mainstream media usually ignore these riots.

Where the violence is too widespread and too widely known locally to be ignored, both the local media and public officials often describe what happened as unspecified "young people" attacking unspecified victims for unspecified reasons. But videos of the attacks often reveal both the racial nature of these attacks and the racial hostility expressed by the attackers.

[Far bigger news was John Derbyshire's The Talk: Nonblack Version, and its advice: "If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot)." Writing this was a hate-crime that cost a man his job, but race riots apparently are not hate-crimes worthy of reportage.]

Prof. Sowell wisely, and chillingly, concludes:

The dangers to the nation as a whole are an even bigger problem. The truth has a way of eventually coming out, in spite of media silence and politicians' spin. If the truth becomes widely known, and a white backlash follows, turning one-way race riots into two-way race riots, then a cycle of revenge and counter-revenge can spiral out of control, as has already happened in too many other countries around the world.

Most blacks and most whites in the United States today get along with each other. But what is chilling is how often in history racial or ethnic groups that co-existed peacefully for generations -- often as neighbors -- have suddenly turned on each other with lethal violence.

In the middle of the 20th century, Sri Lanka had a level of mutual respect and even friendship between its majority and minority communities that was rightly held up to the world as a model. Yet this situation degenerated over the years into polarization and violence that escalated into a civil war that lasted for decades, with unspeakable atrocities on both sides.

All it took were clever demagogues and gullible followers. We already have both. What it will take to nip in the bud the small but widely spreading race riots will be some serious leadership in many quarters and that rarest of all things in politics, honesty.

Race hustlers and mob inciters like Al Sharpton represent such polarizing forces in America today. Yet Sharpton has become a White House adviser, and Attorney General Eric Holder has been photographed literally embracing him.

Mormon Girls

The strongest force binding me to the Church, however, wasn’t religious, but hormonal. I found the girls of my ward more attractive than the girls at school. Perhaps because Mormon custom encourages young folks to marry permanently and early, often when they’re barely out of their teens, the girls were precociously skilled at self-enhancement, favoring leg-slimming, grown-up-looking shoes, and eye-catching, curling-iron-assisted hairstyles. They also permitted discreet erotic contact that stopped just short of actual intercourse. The girl I liked best of all was Carla H., a hell-raising cheerleader two years my senior. Carla had sinful menthol-cigarette breath and a scandalous reputation. A couple of months before I fell for her at one of the ward’s monthly Saturday night dances, she’d run away from home, the story went, and shacked up with the married manager of the franchise restaurant where she worked. The better brought-up boys avoided her because of this, but I, a new convert, was undeterred.

An excerpt from Walter Kirn's "personal history of America’s most misunderstood religion" — Confessions of an Ex-Mormon. Earlier, he writes:

I’d never been a good Mormon, as you’ll soon learn (indeed, I’m not a Mormon at all these days), but the talk of religion spurred by Romney’s run had aroused in me feelings of surprising intensity. Attacks on Mormonism by liberal wits and their unlikely partners in ridicule, conservative evangelical Christians, instantly filled me with resentment, particularly when they made mention of “magic underwear” and other supposedly spooky, cultish aspects of Mormon doctrine and theology. On the other hand, legitimate reminders of the Church hierarchy’s decisive support for Proposition 8, the California gay marriage ban, disgusted me. Deeper, trickier emotions surfaced whenever I came across the media’s favorite visual emblem of the faith: a young male missionary in a shirt and tie with a black plastic name-badge pinned to his vest pocket. The image suggested that Mormons were squares and robots, a naïve, brainwashed army of the out-of-touch. That hurt a bit. It also tugged me back to a sad, frightened moment in my youth when these figures of fun were all my family had.

Huston Smith's The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions tries to let us see the world's religions as they see themselves, which is how we should at least attempt to seeMormonism before tearing it apart theologically. I, for one, am fascinated by a religion whose adherents "believe that the United States Constitution is a divinely inspired document."

In fact, I'm tempted to visit the Hill Cumorah Pageant, happening this week about fifteen minutes from where I live and blog, where the religion began, if only to see if what Mr. Kirn says about "leg-slimming, grown-up-looking shoes, and eye-catching, curling-iron-assisted hairstyles" still holds true.

"Monica! Monica!"

The chant that greeted "Hillary... as she appeared in Egypt... while large crowds threw tomatoes and shoes at her car," reminiscent, Thomas DiLorenzo, reminds us, of "what people in Sudan chanted after Bill Clinton attempted to divert world media attention away from Monica Lewinsky's grand jury testimony by sending missiles to a Sudanese aspirin factory on the very day of Monica's testimony" — ‘Screw Monica, Not Us!’

Vox Populi, Vox Dei?

"Let all those who have a view on this subject place their trust in the Scottish people and let Scotland decide," His Eminence said — Scottish cardinal calls for referendum on same-sex 'marriage'.

Your Eminence may have the numbers now, like every state in the union on these shores that has voted on the matter thus far, but what happens when you do not? The precedent, so important in our Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, has been set. A better approach is to simply teach the truth and get the state out of marriage. Rather than attempt to legislate what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms (or more accurately choose to call what they do therein), let us pray for them.

An Appreciation of America's Pastime

CounterPuncher David Macaray reminds us that this "elegant, pastoral, and impossibly graceful game was supplanted by a brutal, aggressive, and violent one," and gives us "10 reasons why baseball is the greatest sport ever invented" — In Defense of Baseball.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum Performed by Le Poème Harmonique, Directed by Vincent Dumestre

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn on Bastile Day

"For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution," said the great historian of leftism, quoted by Daniel McAdams — Remembering Bastile Day with Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.

The self-described "extreme conservative arch-liberal" said that the Revolution was at least in part inspired by "French Anglophiles [who had a] completely false understanding of what had just happened in America," calling this, "in a way, the first great Euro-American misunderstanding."

The Austrian continued, "On the other hand, Governor Morris, the American envoy to Paris, told the conceited Lafayette at the beginning of the revolution: 'I am against your democracy, Monsieur de Lafayette, because I am for freedom.' In 1815 he began a speech with the words, 'The Bourbons are back on the throne; Europe is once again free' -something which today hardly an American would understand after so many years of school-inculcated fatuity."

Retirement Comes for the Archbishop

The churchman who "turned the Rochester diocese into the most liberal district in the country" — Bishop Matthew Clark leaving indelible mark on diocese. The report begins with an interesting anecdote:

Bishop Matthew H. Clark remembers the letter: stern, foreboding, and signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — the man whom the world knows today as Pope Benedict XVI.

Delivered to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester in 1986, the Vatican’s letter said that Rev. Charles E. Curran’s beliefs on the subjects of masturbation, homosexuality and premarital sex would promote a questionable “pluralism in teaching moral doctrine,” and that Clark was not to defend the man’s opinions any more.

But Clark didn’t back down.

“Your Eminence, I fail to see how such a description does justice to what I wrote,” Clark responded in a return letter. “My intention was to portray moral theology as a living discipline, which ever faces new questions and which historically has developed a great deal.”

"I wish you was here..."

Linguist John McWhorter quotes "the famous letters between John and Abigail Adams during their frequent separations" to illustrate his point that "[w]e can teach people which forms of English are acceptable without thinking of the more colloquial phrases and words as errors" — A Matter of Fashion.

"The Snuggery"

I was mildly shocked to read an ad for it in a local paper last week and realized I was not alone when I saw this local report that the "woman who started her own cuddling business is getting more national attention than she ever imagined" — Meet Penfield 'snuggler' Jackie Samuel.

A Chinese-Malaysian prostitute who lived down the hall from me in Kuala Lumpur told me she called this "romance" and it was the cheapest and most basic of the services she offered.

The Civil Wars Perform "Barton Hollow," "Twenty Years," and "Poison & Wine"

"Watch Joy Williams and John Paul White's swooning chemistry and stirring harmonies..."

Rogue President

A review of new novel about a president who "imprisons critics, invokes martial law, suspends the writ of habeus corpus, and throttles the press" — Abraham Lincoln 'Impeached.' Wait, What?

Says the author, "I think Lincoln was our greatest president; I have no question about that. But at the same time, there were a lot of things that Lincoln did during his presidency, in order to win the Civil War [sic], that could be called into question."

About his being our "our greatest president," I'll just quote John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, who said, "Great men are almost always bad men," the oft-forgotten coda to his famous dictum, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Three From The American Conservative on the Dismal Science

Mark Skousen explains "[h]ow Friedrich Hayek eclipsed J.M. Keynes and Milton Friedman" — Austerity’s Prophets.

Contra Keynesian economics, especially Military Keynesianism, Robert P. Murphy explains that "World War II didn't improve the average American's standard of living" — The Myth of Wartime Prosperity.

"The Libor scandal," says Pat Buchanan, "tells us time is running out for America's crony capitalists" — The Twilight of Casino Capitalism.

Eugenicist Gates Foundation Exposed

By Steve Sailer, that horrible racist — Bill & Melinda rebranding 3rd World population control as feminist. Mr. Sailer:

In other words, if, by providing more and better contraceptives to Third Worlders, you can reduce maternity by 1/3rd that ought, all else being equal, to reduce maternal mortality by 1/3rd. So, this push by Bill and Melinda Gates to boost population control isn't about keeping nonwhite Third World babies from being born, it's about keeping nonwhite Third World women from dying! Are you in favor of nonwhite Third World women dying? Hunh? Hunh? Are ya? So, Melinda and I aren't racists, we are feminists, and anybody who says we're racist just wants nonwhite Third World women to die in childbirth.

Old Crow Medicine Show Perform "Wagon Wheel"

Turns out the origin of the song is in the band's "trying to finish a job Bob Dylan had started" — Old Crow Medicine Show: Something Borrowed.

Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes Perform A Garota de Ipanema

The composers perform "the second-most recorded pop song ever" — Who Is She? Just One Of The Most Popular Songs Ever.

City Cracks Down on Black Neighborhood Businesses

For non-crimes like "single cigarette sales" — Rochester tries to address corner store problem. The city also plans to "limit their offering of tobacco, alcohol and lottery to one but not all."

Despite the city government working against them, "city records identify roughly 350 convenience store locations," or "10 stores for every square mile of land, a 15 percent increase since 2005." The article notes, "Historically, corner stores — like barber shops — were anchors of their neighborhoods, reflecting the tastes and ethnicity of residents."

While "single cigarette sales" might strike horror in the hearts of many Americans, as a student in Chile, I found that every city kiosk sold them. Not only did Chilean society not fall apart, the country's economy grew to such a point that she now ranks as a first-world nation.

Ernest Borgnine Discusses His Rôle as Saint Longinus the Centurian...

... in Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth (1977); requiescat in pace — Actor Ernest Borgnine passes away at the age of 95.

Saint Longinus the Centurian, pray for us.

F. J. Haydn's "The Creation," Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Janice Chandler-Eteme, Richard Clement, John Relyea, Sir Gilbert Levine

Theodore Dalrymple says that the composer "universally acknowledged to have been a delightful man with the most equable temperament" "refutes in his own person the romantic notion that a creative person must either be tormented or a swine" and "proves that it is possible to do brilliant work and yet be a good man" — Haydn Seek.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Perform "Look At Miss Ohio"

Moral Theology would have much to say about the lyric, "I wanna do right but not right now."

Carolina Chocolate Drops Perform "Don't Get Trouble in Your Mind"

The new and old linups.

Steve Sailer's "Diversity Before Diversity" Series

"One goal of my Diversity Before Diversity series on popular American celebrities of the past who were considered non-white then or would be today (e.g., Jim Thorpe or Pancho Gonzales) or (as in the case of pugilistic superstar John L. Sullivan) have been retconned by today's mythology into supposedly having been viewed as nonwhite back then is to point out that the color line discrimination against blacks was both quantitatively and qualitatively more severe than the discrimination suffered by other groups" — Non-Diversity before Diversity.

Or, "One of the points I'm trying to make with this Diversity Before Diversity series is that when thinking about the past, we shouldn't project how African-Americans were treated to other minorities" — Diversity before Diversity: Duke Kahanamoku. The "racist" explains, "It's not accurate, and it's not fair to blacks."

In other words, isn't it lame how other minority groups try to benefit from Black America's unique history of suffering? Is it "racist" to think so?

Earlier posts in the fascinating series — Pancho Gonzales, Diversity before Diversity: Cheech Marin, Diversity before Diversity: Ballerina Maria Tallchief, Diversity before Diversity: Vice President Charles Curtis. Down the memory hole has been flushed the knowledge that we had a veep who "could speak Kaw before he could speak English and spent a number of his formative years on a reservation."

Peacenik Pat Buchanan Strikes Again

With one of his most important articles to date — Iran Derangement Syndrome. The paleocon asks, "Have we no statesmen who can sit down, like Reagan at Reykjavik, and negotiate with Iran’s leaders for verifiable guarantees that she is not moving to nuclear weapons in return for something approaching normal relations?"

Whither Pat Buchanan's Rag?

The New Beginning ponders — AmConMag veering towards Hamiltonian Nationalism?

The Humane Economist

The New Beginning links to The Imaginative Conservative's Ralph E. Ancil article on the economist whose "writings on society assume a traditional Christian worldview, [and who] broadens his inter­pretation of the process of disinte­gration and decay by adding evidences from the social sciences, includ­ing the science of econom­ics, that must be kept in any picture of society that aims at completeness" — The Ideal Economy of Wilhelm Roepke.

A list of my old blog's posts on the economist:

• Austro-Distributivists Unite!
• An Austrian School Distributivist?
• A Call for Peace Between Paleo-libertarians and Neo-distributists
• The Austrian School and Distibutivsm
• A Libertarian Looks to Belloc, Röpke, Agrarians, and Distributists
• Can "Thrift" Unite Distributivists and Austrianists (and Confucians)?
• Chesterothbard?
• Austro-Distributivism
• Wilhelm Röpke
• Röpke on Centrism and Decentrism
• A Humane Austrian
• Wilhelm Röpke, Libertarian Traditionalist
• Again, the Great Wilhelm Röpke
• Yet Another Wilhelm Röpke Post
• Look to Wilhelm Röpke
• The Humane Economist
• A Roepkean in the House
• Where Röpke and Schumacher Meet
• An Appreciation of Wilhelm Röpke
• "The Wilhelm Roepke Solution to Our Economic Woes"
• Roepkeanism in India

Chiara Petrillo, Ora Pro Nobis

Pictured above, the "28-year-old Italian mother who apparently refused life-saving cancer treatment that would have damaged or destroyed her baby" — One day this woman will be a saint.

Writes Paul Williams, Emeritus Professor of Indian and Tibetan Philosophy at the University of Bristol and lay member of the Dominican Order, "At a time when the Church is constantly under scrutiny and attack by its enemies and all too often by its friends as well, urging that the Church’s very survival depends on following some latest fad or fashion, Chiara Petrillo shows too that (in Tertullian’s famous saying) the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Christians."

Been to the DMV Lately?

I have, on numerous occasions as part of my reintegration into American society, and found it, like Scott Clifton, to be an anarchist-making experience — Here Not To Serve You.

Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno on the Higgs Boson

"It is a wonderful piece of science" — Vatican astronomer says 'God particle' is misnamed, but exciting. "The name 'the God particle' was given to it as a joke by Leon Lederma."

Fighting Porn

With "prayer vigil[s] and novena[s]," not federal intervention — Illinois community ups efforts to prevent strip club opening.

Brittany Haas & Lauren Rioux Perform "Gray Owl / Red & White & Blue & Gold"

National[ist] Public Radio

I am not ashamed to say I listen to NPR every day. If I stuck only to dissident outlets like The American Conservative, Antiwar.com, Chronicles, CounterPunch, LewRockwell.com, The New American, and Taki's Magazine, how would I ever know what the régime wants us to think? I was struck by a few more ridiculous things than usual listening today.

First, their labeling of a foreign new agency as "semi-official" was quite ironic. Why don't they apply this label to themselves? Second was a story about the president's Fourth of July event, in which the returned troops present were, in Faux News fashion, simply referred to as "military heroes," every last one of them.

Finally, a comment made by some idiot congressman, left unchallenged, that the military should get America's first strategic reserves of oil and the rest of the country "tighten its belt" — Military's Green Energy Criticized By Congress. That all of our recent (and not so recent) wars have all been foreign wars of choice is beyond the scope of discussion; the Pentagram needs to be a greener killing machine.

Two Reviews of Popular Novels

"Readers don’t turn to Stephen King for belles lettres, but his writing habits are highly effective for storytelling, plot development, character composition (or decomposition), and other such homely virtues," says y first spying on Oswald to ascertain that he’s the lone assassin, then eliminating him" — The American Conservative's Marian Kester Coombs of tha author's latest, whose protagonist is travels through time "to prevent the Kennedy assassination by first spying on Oswald to ascertain that he’s the lone assassin, then eliminating him" — To Save JFK.

"Now that I have been sucked into the vortex that is the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, I am beginning to understand that women want the dude to be in charge, and apparently that’s hotter than equality," begins Taki's Magazine's Bruce Cochran — Fifty Shades of Frustration.

Woodie Gurthrie's "This Land is Your Land" Performed by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Los Lobos

"WHEN, in the Courſe of human Events..."

"... it becomes neceſſary for one People to diſſolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to aſſume among the Powers of the Earth, the ſeparate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Reſpect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they ſhould declare the cauſes which impel them to the Separation.


"WE hold theſe Truths to be ſelf-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among theſe are Life, Liberty and the Purſuit of happineſs— That to ſecure theſe Rights, Governments are inſtituted among Men, deriving their juſt Powers from the Conſent of the Governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes deſtructive of theſe Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to aboliſh it, and to inſtitute new Government, laying its Foundation on ſuch Principles and organizing its Powers in ſuch Form, as to them ſhall ſeem moſt likely to effect their Safety and Happineſs. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long eſtabliſhed ſhould not be changed for light and tranſient Cauſes; and accordingly all Experience hath ſhown that Mankind are more diſpoſed to ſuffer, while Evils are ſufferable, than to right themſelves by aboliſhing the Forms to which they are accuſtomed. But when a long Train of Abuſes and Uſurpations, purſuing invariably the ſame Object, evinces a Deſign to reduce them under abſolute Deſpotiſm, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off ſuch Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of theſe Colonies; and ſuch is now the Neceſſity which conſtrains them to alter their former Syſtems of Government. The Hiſtory of the preſent King of Great-Britain is a Hiſtory of repeated Injuries and Uſurpations, all having in direct Object the Eſtabliſhment of an abſolute Tyranny over theſe States. To prove this, let Facts be ſubmitted to a candid World..." — The Declaration of Independence

"Church in the Wildwood" Performed by Andy Griffith, Don Knotts & Robert Emhardt

"What was really the backbone of the show — we never talked about it — but the backbone of the show and the thrust of the show was love" — Andy Griffith: A TV Icon From Mayberry To 'Matlock'. "Things have changed so much. People walked away from a simple life we had in the '20s and '30s, and I am glad that I am able to touch that period in our lives with the shows that I do and with the music that I do."

Amen. Thank you. And rest in peace.

Of course, this blog's tag line with its warning against the dangers of nostalgia comes to mind, but Mr. Griffith cannot be blamed for tapping into a genuine longing for better times.

What do Madame Curie and Yasser Arafat Have in Common?

Besides Nobel prizes (one of which was deserved), they may have both been victims of radiological poisonings (one of which may have been deliberate and malicious) — Swiss institute finds polonium in Arafat's effects.

"I’ll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever...."

"I don’t care what the facts are," said George Bush, père, after an atrocity committed during his régime that has been flushed down the memory hole — Grim Anniversary: Iran Mourns 1988 US Attack on Flight 655. The "passenger airliner... was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz by the US Navy, killing all 290 civilians aboard."

Mikaela Davis Performs "Oh Brother"

Some local talent.

A Neocon Debunked

The National Interest's Christopher A. Preble exposes "a fixture in the foreign-policy establishment with bipartisan influence in Washington," "one of only two people (the other was his frequent coauthor William Kristol) to have signed all thirteen letters and public statements issued by the Project for a New American Century," whose work "combines questionable international-relations theory, questionable economics and questionable politics," and whose "arguments combine the most elementary of post hoc fallacies with unwarranted assumptions and idle speculation" — The Critique of Pure Kagan.

Here's to the State of Mississippi!

She "could soon become the only state without an abortion clinic" — Mississippi Abortion Clinic Law Set To Take Effect.