Watching the imbroglio over extending the federal debt limit has been morbidly fascinating, rather like watching a huge and extended auto wreck in slow motion or the Episcopal Church, as it slowly and permanently goes off the rails. At this writing it looks as if a deal between the House and the Senate is just about in place, which will permit our government to run up an additional $3 trillion dollars on the credit card, in exchange for some cuts now and more later (mind you, they are not really cuts, rather cutbacks in increased spending so as not to exceed the new debt limit).
While the agreement in itself may not strike debt hawks as all that substantial, something far more remarkable will have occurred upon its signing, something we have never seen before: the public fisc as a campaign issue. To that end, the terms of the deal, whatever they are, are almost immaterial. The recognition at last by some officers of the body politic and, even more important, the majority of the American public, that we are on the road to ruin, that drastic action (far greater than any deal made today) must be taken, a song sung in decades past by only a few lonely Cassandras and only to be ignored, should cause a collective sigh of relief, for it is doubtful now the song can be ignored any longer.
This would not have happened had John McCain been elected president. He and his fellow career Republican hacks, rightfully derided decades ago as "bookkeepers to the welfare state," would, of course, have continued the spending party but would have done so "cautiously," via nickels and dimes (i.e. mere hundreds of billions as opposed to trillions of dollars) so that our present indebtedness would not have appeared quite so ominous, thus making it easier to put off dealing with till another day. It took true visionaries like Barack Obama and his Democrat minions in Congress, with their visceral hatred and stupefying ignorance of free markets, to jack the national debt up into the stratosphere and thus, finally, get the country's attention. You could say we owe them a debt of gratitude for that.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Don't Know How to Thank You
Watching the imbroglio over extending the federal debt limit has been morbidly fascinating, rather like watching a huge and extended auto wreck in slow motion or the Episcopal Church, as it slowly and permanently goes off the rails. At this writing it looks as if a deal between the House and the Senate is just about in place, which will permit our government to run up an additional $3 trillion dollars on the credit card, in exchange for some cuts now and more later (mind you, they are not really cuts, rather cutbacks in increased spending so as not to exceed the new debt limit).
While the agreement in itself may not strike debt hawks as all that substantial, something far more remarkable will have occurred upon its signing, something we have never seen before: the public fisc as a campaign issue. To that end, the terms of the deal, whatever they are, are almost immaterial. The recognition at last by some officers of the body politic and, even more important, the majority of the American public, that we are on the road to ruin, that drastic action (far greater than any deal made today) must be taken, a song sung in decades past by only a few lonely Cassandras and only to be ignored, should cause a collective sigh of relief, for it is doubtful now the song can be ignored any longer.
This would not have happened had John McCain been elected president. He and his fellow career Republican hacks, rightfully derided decades ago as "bookkeepers to the welfare state," would, of course, have continued the spending party but would have done so "cautiously," via nickels and dimes (i.e. mere hundreds of billions as opposed to trillions of dollars) so that our present indebtedness would not have appeared quite so ominous, thus making it easier to put off dealing with till another day. It took true visionaries like Barack Obama and his Democrat minions in Congress, with their visceral hatred and stupefying ignorance of free markets, to jack the national debt up into the stratosphere and thus, finally, get the country's attention. You could say we owe them a debt of gratitude for that.
While the agreement in itself may not strike debt hawks as all that substantial, something far more remarkable will have occurred upon its signing, something we have never seen before: the public fisc as a campaign issue. To that end, the terms of the deal, whatever they are, are almost immaterial. The recognition at last by some officers of the body politic and, even more important, the majority of the American public, that we are on the road to ruin, that drastic action (far greater than any deal made today) must be taken, a song sung in decades past by only a few lonely Cassandras and only to be ignored, should cause a collective sigh of relief, for it is doubtful now the song can be ignored any longer.
This would not have happened had John McCain been elected president. He and his fellow career Republican hacks, rightfully derided decades ago as "bookkeepers to the welfare state," would, of course, have continued the spending party but would have done so "cautiously," via nickels and dimes (i.e. mere hundreds of billions as opposed to trillions of dollars) so that our present indebtedness would not have appeared quite so ominous, thus making it easier to put off dealing with till another day. It took true visionaries like Barack Obama and his Democrat minions in Congress, with their visceral hatred and stupefying ignorance of free markets, to jack the national debt up into the stratosphere and thus, finally, get the country's attention. You could say we owe them a debt of gratitude for that.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tell Us Something New or Birds of a Feather
From the Chicago Sun Times comes word Tiger Wood's ex-wife Elin Nordegren was "stunned to learn [her] new man slept with Tiger Wood's mistress."
Which brings to mind the 1954 picture starring Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde, The Sea Shall Not Have Them. Noel Coward, upon first seeing the title quipped, "I don't see why not. Everyone else has."
h/t Instapundit
Which brings to mind the 1954 picture starring Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde, The Sea Shall Not Have Them. Noel Coward, upon first seeing the title quipped, "I don't see why not. Everyone else has."
h/t Instapundit
Tell Us Something New or Birds of a Feather
From the Chicago Sun Times comes word Tiger Wood's ex-wife Elin Nordegren was "stunned to learn [her] new man slept with Tiger Wood's mistress."
Which brings to mind the 1954 picture starring Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde, The Sea Shall Not Have Them. Noel Coward, upon first seeing the title quipped, "I don't see why not. Everyone else has."
h/t Instapundit
Which brings to mind the 1954 picture starring Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde, The Sea Shall Not Have Them. Noel Coward, upon first seeing the title quipped, "I don't see why not. Everyone else has."
h/t Instapundit
Monday, July 18, 2011
Gather Us In Does Not Compute
Two robots have it out over liturgical music. Happily, the right robot wins (it's proving a little more difficult in the analogue world).
h/t Augustine
h/t Augustine
Gather Us In Does Not Compute
Two robots have it out over liturgical music. Happily, the right robot wins (it's proving a little more difficult in the analogue world).
h/t Augustine
h/t Augustine
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Old Wine in Old Bottles
(Back after vacation.)
Your Bloviator, still reeling after reading somewhere a reference to "fifty-year-old men dressed like Justin Timberlake" (in a piece depicting the horrors seen at a failing Midwestern mall), finally decided a shake-up in the wardrobe department was no longer to be put off. Being of the cheap sort, however, I determined the best way to effect the sartorial upgrade was via the best kept secret among those whose familys' money is so old there isn't any left, the charity thrift shop, some of the best of them being, happily, either near work, on the Upper East Side, or in the region of my upbringing, where family still lives and a shopping expedition is thus justifiable on the pretext of a making a visit.
Things got off to an auspicious start early last week with a stop at the Spence Chapin Thrift Shop, where a good looking fine-checked shirt was to be had for five dollars (down from ten, owing to a one-day half-off sale). That triumph was quickly trumped at the next stop, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Thrift Shop, just a block away (Charles Kettering, by the way, gave the world, among many other splendid things, the electric self-starter for autos, thus making it possible for anyone to drive a car, and became hugely and deservedly rich for it). At this most elegant of charity thrifts, I came across a B2 (Brooks Brothers) blazer, whose previous owner must have gone to his reward within days of its delivery for it looked virtually unworn. Even more pleasing, that presumably late owner must have been my body double, to the point of even having similarly stubby arms; in short, the jacket felt tailor made. I thought the $40 price tag eminently reasonable but was further pleased to learn from one of the cheerful volunteers at the register her shop, no doubt in fierce competition with Spence Chapin, was also having a half-off sale.
I enjoyed some lesser success at other shops on the Upper East Side later in the week and today ended what I imagine to be just the first of several required sorties in the Bloviator campaign to look respectable. I landed at the Greenwich (CT) Hospital Thrift Shop, where another fine looking shirt was gotten on the cheap. Two thoughts came to mind while prowling the aisles out thar in Greenwich.
Your Bloviator, still reeling after reading somewhere a reference to "fifty-year-old men dressed like Justin Timberlake" (in a piece depicting the horrors seen at a failing Midwestern mall), finally decided a shake-up in the wardrobe department was no longer to be put off. Being of the cheap sort, however, I determined the best way to effect the sartorial upgrade was via the best kept secret among those whose familys' money is so old there isn't any left, the charity thrift shop, some of the best of them being, happily, either near work, on the Upper East Side, or in the region of my upbringing, where family still lives and a shopping expedition is thus justifiable on the pretext of a making a visit.
Things got off to an auspicious start early last week with a stop at the Spence Chapin Thrift Shop, where a good looking fine-checked shirt was to be had for five dollars (down from ten, owing to a one-day half-off sale). That triumph was quickly trumped at the next stop, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Thrift Shop, just a block away (Charles Kettering, by the way, gave the world, among many other splendid things, the electric self-starter for autos, thus making it possible for anyone to drive a car, and became hugely and deservedly rich for it). At this most elegant of charity thrifts, I came across a B2 (Brooks Brothers) blazer, whose previous owner must have gone to his reward within days of its delivery for it looked virtually unworn. Even more pleasing, that presumably late owner must have been my body double, to the point of even having similarly stubby arms; in short, the jacket felt tailor made. I thought the $40 price tag eminently reasonable but was further pleased to learn from one of the cheerful volunteers at the register her shop, no doubt in fierce competition with Spence Chapin, was also having a half-off sale.
I enjoyed some lesser success at other shops on the Upper East Side later in the week and today ended what I imagine to be just the first of several required sorties in the Bloviator campaign to look respectable. I landed at the Greenwich (CT) Hospital Thrift Shop, where another fine looking shirt was gotten on the cheap. Two thoughts came to mind while prowling the aisles out thar in Greenwich.
- It is perversely pleasurable to see that even mighty Brooks Brothers is capable of the occasional hideous mistake and
- I wonder if the committee at the reasonably exclusive Greenwich Country Club that thought it would be ducky to have a bunch of polo shirts with the club's moniker embroidered on them, for sale to the membership presumably, ever considered some of those shirts would find their way to a thrift shop, where one could observe a "day laborer" (to put it tactfully) seriously eyeing one of them for purchase (I should gladly have bought it for him were it possible to have done so without appearing the patronizing a-hole).
Old Wine in Old Bottles
(Back after vacation.)
Your Bloviator, still reeling after reading somewhere a reference to "fifty-year-old men dressed like Justin Timberlake" (in a piece depicting the horrors seen at a failing Midwestern mall), finally decided a shake-up in the wardrobe department was no longer to be put off. Being of the cheap sort, however, I determined the best way to effect the sartorial upgrade was via the best kept secret among those whose familys' money is so old there isn't any left, the charity thrift shop, some of the best of them being, happily, either near work, on the Upper East Side, or in the region of my upbringing, where family still lives and a shopping expedition is thus justifiable on the pretext of a making a visit.
Things got off to an auspicious start early last week with a stop at the Spence Chapin Thrift Shop, where a good looking fine-checked shirt was to be had for five dollars (down from ten, owing to a one-day half-off sale). That triumph was quickly trumped at the next stop, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Thrift Shop, just a block away (Charles Kettering, by the way, gave the world, among many other splendid things, the electric self-starter for autos, thus making it possible for anyone to drive a car, and became hugely and deservedly rich for it). At this most elegant of charity thrifts, I came across a B2 (Brooks Brothers) blazer, whose previous owner must have gone to his reward within days of its delivery for it looked virtually unworn. Even more pleasing, that presumably late owner must have been my body double, to the point of even having similarly stubby arms; in short, the jacket felt tailor made. I thought the $40 price tag eminently reasonable but was further pleased to learn from one of the cheerful volunteers at the register her shop, no doubt in fierce competition with Spence Chapin, was also having a half-off sale.
I enjoyed some lesser success at other shops on the Upper East Side later in the week and today ended what I imagine to be just the first of several required sorties in the Bloviator campaign to look respectable. I landed at the Greenwich (CT) Hospital Thrift Shop, where another fine looking shirt was gotten on the cheap. Two thoughts came to mind while prowling the aisles out thar in Greenwich.
Your Bloviator, still reeling after reading somewhere a reference to "fifty-year-old men dressed like Justin Timberlake" (in a piece depicting the horrors seen at a failing Midwestern mall), finally decided a shake-up in the wardrobe department was no longer to be put off. Being of the cheap sort, however, I determined the best way to effect the sartorial upgrade was via the best kept secret among those whose familys' money is so old there isn't any left, the charity thrift shop, some of the best of them being, happily, either near work, on the Upper East Side, or in the region of my upbringing, where family still lives and a shopping expedition is thus justifiable on the pretext of a making a visit.
Things got off to an auspicious start early last week with a stop at the Spence Chapin Thrift Shop, where a good looking fine-checked shirt was to be had for five dollars (down from ten, owing to a one-day half-off sale). That triumph was quickly trumped at the next stop, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Thrift Shop, just a block away (Charles Kettering, by the way, gave the world, among many other splendid things, the electric self-starter for autos, thus making it possible for anyone to drive a car, and became hugely and deservedly rich for it). At this most elegant of charity thrifts, I came across a B2 (Brooks Brothers) blazer, whose previous owner must have gone to his reward within days of its delivery for it looked virtually unworn. Even more pleasing, that presumably late owner must have been my body double, to the point of even having similarly stubby arms; in short, the jacket felt tailor made. I thought the $40 price tag eminently reasonable but was further pleased to learn from one of the cheerful volunteers at the register her shop, no doubt in fierce competition with Spence Chapin, was also having a half-off sale.
I enjoyed some lesser success at other shops on the Upper East Side later in the week and today ended what I imagine to be just the first of several required sorties in the Bloviator campaign to look respectable. I landed at the Greenwich (CT) Hospital Thrift Shop, where another fine looking shirt was gotten on the cheap. Two thoughts came to mind while prowling the aisles out thar in Greenwich.
- It is perversely pleasurable to see that even mighty Brooks Brothers is capable of the occasional hideous mistake and
- I wonder if the committee at the reasonably exclusive Greenwich Country Club that thought it would be ducky to have a bunch of polo shirts with the club's moniker embroidered on them, for sale to the membership presumably, ever considered some of those shirts would find their way to a thrift shop, where one could observe a "day laborer" (to put it tactfully) seriously eyeing one of them for purchase (I should gladly have bought it for him were it possible to have done so without appearing the patronizing a-hole).
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Angels of Death from the Folk Song Army
Instapundit links to Ann Althouse, who points to this piece in the New York Times about earnest folkies going about nursing homes to ply their trade to the terminally ill, who have but only one means of escape.
Every week, three music therapists from MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care crisscross the city and suburbs to sing songs to the dying. With guitars strapped to their backs, a flute or tambourine and a songbook jammed in their backpacks, they play music for more than 100 patients, in housing projects, in nursing homes and even in a lavish waterfront home. The time for chemotherapy and radiation is over.One should think after all that ghastly chemo and radiation those poor souls had suffered enough; now they must endure "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" as they finally shuffle off this mortal coil: O death, where is thy sting--and look slippy about it! It all brings to mind Tom Lehrer, the 50s-60s singer-songwriter satirist and one of the last of the funny liberals, who nonetheless had no time for modern pop music (once referring to "rock and roll and other children's records") and positively detested folk music, putting that dislike into song.
Angels of Death from the Folk Song Army
Instapundit links to Ann Althouse, who points to this piece in the New York Times about earnest folkies going about nursing homes to ply their trade to the terminally ill, who have but only one means of escape.
Every week, three music therapists from MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care crisscross the city and suburbs to sing songs to the dying. With guitars strapped to their backs, a flute or tambourine and a songbook jammed in their backpacks, they play music for more than 100 patients, in housing projects, in nursing homes and even in a lavish waterfront home. The time for chemotherapy and radiation is over.One should think after all that ghastly chemo and radiation those poor souls had suffered enough; now they must endure "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" as they finally shuffle off this mortal coil: O death, where is thy sting--and look slippy about it! It all brings to mind Tom Lehrer, the 50s-60s singer-songwriter satirist and one of the last of the funny liberals, who nonetheless had no time for modern pop music (once referring to "rock and roll and other children's records") and positively detested folk music, putting that dislike into song.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
I Had NO Idea It was Worth That Much...
This is what the people who haul in all those clown paintings they find in the attic to Antiques Roadshow secretly pray for.
The Two Kings--lost Botticelli from the Bloviator Collection.
Lost Leonardo Da Vinci painting that cost £45 in 1958 is valued at £120million
By ADRIAN SHAW A LOST painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, bought in a clearance sale, was yesterday valued at £120million.Experts who flew to London last year to authenticate the work as the Italian master’s were sworn to secrecy about the small oil on wood panel painting from 1513.But yesterday, Professor Pietro Marani, from Milan, said: “We could tell at once it was by Da Vinci. There are lots of copies but this is undoubtedly his own hand...
The Two Kings--lost Botticelli from the Bloviator Collection.
I Had NO Idea It was Worth That Much...
This is what the people who haul in all those clown paintings they find in the attic to Antiques Roadshow secretly pray for.
The Two Kings--lost Botticelli from the Bloviator Collection.
Lost Leonardo Da Vinci painting that cost £45 in 1958 is valued at £120million
By ADRIAN SHAW A LOST painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, bought in a clearance sale, was yesterday valued at £120million.Experts who flew to London last year to authenticate the work as the Italian master’s were sworn to secrecy about the small oil on wood panel painting from 1513.But yesterday, Professor Pietro Marani, from Milan, said: “We could tell at once it was by Da Vinci. There are lots of copies but this is undoubtedly his own hand...
The Two Kings--lost Botticelli from the Bloviator Collection.
More Horrors from the Church in Austria
Comes word from Fr. Z that over 250 priests the other day in Austria, apparently never having heard of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, were able with good conscience to affix their signatures to a petition asking "women be admitted to the priesthood." Additionally, a poll of Austrian clergy from a year ago reveals "80 percent of pastors in the country declare themselves favorable to the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy."
A reader recently upbraided me (albeit gently) for sharp words I posted about the state of the Church in Austria, with regard to the "Western Mass" debacle, and I thus altered my text somewhat. With this latest news, however, I am left wondering two things:
1. Is obedience to Church teachings taught in Austrian seminaries these days?
2. Is Cardinal Schoenborn moonlighting and thus not able to fully carry out his duties in his daytime job?
h/t William Tighe
A reader recently upbraided me (albeit gently) for sharp words I posted about the state of the Church in Austria, with regard to the "Western Mass" debacle, and I thus altered my text somewhat. With this latest news, however, I am left wondering two things:
1. Is obedience to Church teachings taught in Austrian seminaries these days?
2. Is Cardinal Schoenborn moonlighting and thus not able to fully carry out his duties in his daytime job?
h/t William Tighe
More Horrors from the Church in Austria
Comes word from Fr. Z that over 250 priests the other day in Austria, apparently never having heard of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, were able with good conscience to affix their signatures to a petition asking "women be admitted to the priesthood." Additionally, a poll of Austrian clergy from a year ago reveals "80 percent of pastors in the country declare themselves favorable to the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy."
A reader recently upbraided me (albeit gently) for sharp words I posted about the state of the Church in Austria, with regard to the "Western Mass" debacle, and I thus altered my text somewhat. With this latest news, however, I am left wondering two things:
1. Is obedience to Church teachings taught in Austrian seminaries these days?
2. Is Cardinal Schoenborn moonlighting and thus not able to fully carry out his duties in his daytime job?
h/t William Tighe
A reader recently upbraided me (albeit gently) for sharp words I posted about the state of the Church in Austria, with regard to the "Western Mass" debacle, and I thus altered my text somewhat. With this latest news, however, I am left wondering two things:
1. Is obedience to Church teachings taught in Austrian seminaries these days?
2. Is Cardinal Schoenborn moonlighting and thus not able to fully carry out his duties in his daytime job?
h/t William Tighe
And if they still don't come, we'll double down with felt banners and labyrinths!
An Episcopalian parish, weary of the plummeting numbers, goes on emergency retreat and engages the matter head on.
h/t the Lone Star Parson, whose most excellent blog may be found here.
"The first half-hour was devoted to coffee and meeting one another as the various parish groups assembled. A large circle was then formed, and individual statements were given about hopes for the day. Then the program, or rather the games, began. The stated purpose was to relax us, to get to know one another’s names, and to produce an atmosphere of teamwork. Paper bags covered heads, and people had to form a line or persuade a stony-faced person to smile, etc., for two hours [italics original]...No doubt God did speak to them but having already emptied their minds, they couldn't understand Him, of course. Funny thing, though: one of the oft most repeated tropes of Episcopalian innovators is the smug assertion theirs is the church that doesn't require you leave your mind at the door. Only at retreats, apparently.
...Then one of the leaders got up and gave a brief history of Christian meditation, pointing out that after the Dalai Lama left Tibet and Pope John XXIII instituted reforms, meditation was revived in the West. A pair of shoe liners was placed in the center of our circle, and we were instructed to empty our minds and listen to God for ten minutes.
h/t the Lone Star Parson, whose most excellent blog may be found here.
And if they still don't come, we'll double down with felt banners and labyrinths!
An Episcopalian parish, weary of the plummeting numbers, goes on emergency retreat and engages the matter head on.
h/t the Lone Star Parson, whose most excellent blog may be found here.
"The first half-hour was devoted to coffee and meeting one another as the various parish groups assembled. A large circle was then formed, and individual statements were given about hopes for the day. Then the program, or rather the games, began. The stated purpose was to relax us, to get to know one another’s names, and to produce an atmosphere of teamwork. Paper bags covered heads, and people had to form a line or persuade a stony-faced person to smile, etc., for two hours [italics original]...No doubt God did speak to them but having already emptied their minds, they couldn't understand Him, of course. Funny thing, though: one of the oft most repeated tropes of Episcopalian innovators is the smug assertion theirs is the church that doesn't require you leave your mind at the door. Only at retreats, apparently.
...Then one of the leaders got up and gave a brief history of Christian meditation, pointing out that after the Dalai Lama left Tibet and Pope John XXIII instituted reforms, meditation was revived in the West. A pair of shoe liners was placed in the center of our circle, and we were instructed to empty our minds and listen to God for ten minutes.
h/t the Lone Star Parson, whose most excellent blog may be found here.
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