Greensky Bluegrass Performs "Freeborn Man," "Mexico Buffet" and "Money For Nothing"

These fine young men from Kalamazoo, Michigan were interviewed on Rootabaga Boogie this morning.

Sam Lee Performs "Over Yonders Hill," "Lovely Molly,'" & "Goodbye My Darling'"

Radio Derb Is (Back) on the Air

VDARE is Radio Derb's new home. I'm sure there's a back-story as to why Taki's Magazine no longer hosts the show, but I'm just content to know the show is available weekly again without fee.

Silent Cal, Taoist Sage

"Could a politician characterized by the 'virtue of inactivity' survive in today’s White House?" asks The American Conservative's Gracie Olmstead — Looking for Calvin Coolidge. She quotes contemporary Walter Lippmann:

Mr. Coolidge’s genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is far from being an indolent activity. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity which keeps Mr. Coolidge occupied constantly.

What is this if not Wu-wei, that "central principle in the Chinese philosophy of Daoism... that one should live spontaneously in accordance with the natural flow of the cosmos called the Dao, and not act against this natural order and rhythm of nature?"

Horrifying to contrast the Vermonter Taoist with our next far more "active" president, exposed by The American Conservative's Daniel Larison — Clinton’s Aggressive Foreign Policy.

Baseball, Si; Football, No

Today, I encountered more evidence against the idiotic sport that supplanted America's pastime as our country degenerated from Republic to Empire. It happened again as it did last year at this time between the Saturday family-swim at Barker Road Middle School and Fall Ball with the Pittsford Little League.

A year ago, as we we're leaving the swim, we heard parental cries of "Hit 'em!" from the football field up the hill. These violent cries were contrasted with the encouraging cries of "Nice hit!" from parents from opposing teams later that day on the baseball diamond. Today, we entered the school to an army of ridiculously-armored little storm-troopers. Sorry, neo-Americans, but football uniforms objectively look stupid, and look stupider as the years go on.

Worse were the little cheerleaders, little girls I know from my community and have always thought of as latter-day incarnations of Becky Thatcher dressed as bimbos! You don't need to be a bra-burning, man-hating feminist to understand that the objectification of the fairer sex, and it's relegation to second-class status, is just plain wrong.

Baseball has no need of cheerleaders. Interested girls can be fans or play their own version of the game, softball, itself a noble American institution. Today's scene was for me a reminder that baseball embodies the noblest aspects of the American character, football the basest.

Amythyst Kiah and This Mountain Perform "Myth"

Southern rock still kicks ass, all the more so when infused with Memphis soul. (Mr. Otis Redding, may I introduce you to Mr. Lynyrd Skynyrd.) As the prophetess Tanya Tucker sang in I Believe The South Is Gonna Rise Again:

But I believe the south is gonna rise again
But not the way we thought it would back then
I mean everybody hand in hand
I believe the south is gonna rise again

Amen.

[Repost from April 4th, 2014.]

The Not-So-Surprising Home of Southron Culture Up North

My blood runs Southron. That is to say, I was born in the North, but my ancestry lies in the South. My Georgia-born father wasn't middle-named "Lee" for nothing. I don't make it down to Dixie as often as I used to, but I did make two trips two years ago, one of which included a family reunion for my great aunt's ninetieth birthday.

Up here in the North where I was born and raised, I work for a university that specializes in the STEAM fields, and is thus pretty White. My department is White to a man, or rather, a woman, since apart from the other administrator, I'm the only male. (Yeehaw!) Cross-departmentally, I also travel in pretty White circles, like with one or two Black faces in a crowd of one-hundred at times. We're not a bunch of Ku Kluxers (unlike a great uncle of mine), though; I once participated in a search committee for a managerial position equivalent to my own, and the most qualified candidate out of fifty turned out to be a Black male from my alma mater, and our decision was hands-down, with neither doubt nor reservation, and unanimous.

Today, I attended the Blackest event of my four years here. It was a professional development workshop based around the book Bringing Out the Best in Others!: 3 Keys for Business Leaders, Educators, Coaches and Parents. The facilitator was an engaging and matronly Black woman. My co-participants came less from the managerial classes I normally run with and more from support staff and facilities management folks, with the expected high percentage of Black females in the former group and Black males in the latter. While not majority minority, the group was far more "inclusive" than any I usually participate in.

I felt strangely at home. The familiarity and the free references to family and faith, along with the joviality and jocularity of the interplay between facilitator and participants were a welcome change to what I am used to in my work environment. As I walked back to my department it dawned on me that I was reminded of my extended family down South! Of course my Black co-Rochesterians' ancestors brought this same culture up with them during the Great Migration!

All in all, it was a welcome little midday epiphany about our great land, which I tried sharing to no avail with two of my dearest Yankee colleagues. I was met not with hostility but with utter incomprehension. I am sure my Russian colleague will understand when I tell her tomorrow, as she has noticed in her travels throughout the US the better day-to-day race-relations which exist down South.

The Tallest Man On Earth Performs "Darkness Of The Dream" and "Fields Of Our Home"

Dalrymple on Dawkins on Da'ash

I noticed that Richard Dawkins, the biologist–turned–Savonarola of atheism, tweeted that the destruction of Palmyra demonstrated the power of religion: the doleful power, of course. It seemed to have escaped his notice that temples are generally built in the first place from a religious impulse, and that Palmyra had survived for two millennia in a region to which religion was by no means entirely unknown.

An exeprt from his latest — By Dynamite or Design.