A total solar eclipse is occurring in India and China, and a lengthy one, so they say. Speculation is that gravity is slightly disrupted during these solar eclipses and the Chinese are on top of the research with Gravimeters and pendulums spaced apart at random spots and elevations. Apparently, in France back in the 1970's a prominent pendulum went wobbly and berserck in its motion during a big eclipse, sparking this speculation. I'm nowhere near a scale just now, but I wonder if I'd be lighter if I were to step on one. Wishful thinking, Old Man! Still...
It's such a pleasant night after a typical hot, sunny Georgia July day. The air is clear and light and gently warm, the breeze is ever so slightly caressing, and I'm listening to Echoes ambient and space music as I write from the porch of a busy Starbuck's coffee shop. Drink of choice is iced coffee, tall as it comes, and ice water.
In my next post, I'll get back into Hayek's Road to Serfdom. I started to compose a rather lengthy entry a few days ago with some long quotes from Hayek's text, but encountered some glitches in the typing program. When I clicked the save button, my efforts weren't saved either. The next time I try that, I'll write it out as a Word Document and cut and paste. We'll see if that works better.
Anyway, earlier this evening I spent my $35.00 Barnes & Noble birthday gift card on some additions to my already considerable library and a couple of birthday cards, one for LeeAnn, my younger daughter, and one for Laurie, my lovely wife, and a gift certificate for LeeAnn, whose birthday is coming up on the 29th. Laurie's is on the 24th. All my life, July has been a big birthday month, sharing the month with 2 brothers (Pete on the 2nd and Ivan, now deceased, on the 9th) and an ex-wife of 20 years on the 29th.
The books I purchased were as follows:
Color of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies by Michelle Malkin
Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests Are Transforming... a Slump into a Crash, Freedom into Socialism, and a Disaster into a Catastrophe...and How to Fight Back by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America's Slide into Socialism by U. S. Senator Jim Demint
Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths to Power by Alexandra Robbins.
Now, I read.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Favorite Books
I mention in my profile that one of my main interests is reading and there is a section for listing favorite books. I failed to mention that probably my favorite is the one I'm reading at the time. I'm currently reading The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek. I've just finished Prologues, Prefaces, and Introductions occupying the first several pages of the book. The origin and evolution of the now Classic Economics work from a memorandum of response, to a position paper, to a magazine article to the book it has become is described. The historic context and the contemporary milieu during this part of Hayek's life is described. His intent for the book as a warning cry against creeping statism and collectivism is explained.
Among the many books I've already read this year are Common Sense by Thomas Paine (the original version, not the updated, trendy version with glib commentary by Glenn Beck), Liberty vs. Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark Levin, The Strain by Guillermo del Toro, The Allies of Humanity, Vol 2 by Marshall V. Summers, The Nine and Happiness Is a Warm Gun, 2 parts of a 3-part series, Sinister Forces, by Peter Levenda.
Additionally, I read several literary and news magazines and periodicals of a political nature with a mostly conservative viewpoint (the news magazines, that is), They include Commentary, The National Review, The Limbaugh Letter, Kenyon Review, The American Spectator, Parabola, Downbeat, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, Poets & Writers, The Writer's Digest, Lapham's Quarterly, The Southwest Review, The Paris Review, Scientific American, Foreign Relations, The Philosopher's Magazine, and Ploughshares. I know I'm missing several in this list, just as I didn't name all the books I've read this year in the above paragraph.
Suffice it to say, I'm a reader. I also listen fairly faithfully to the following online radio shows: The Fred Thompson Experience, The Mark Levin Show, Alex Jones on Prison Planet TV, Lee Rogers on Oracle Broadcasting, and a lot of Coast to Coast AM. Suffice it to say, I'm a listener, too. The learning process is an ongoing event, and a fertile mind is a terrible thing to waste. I will most likely quote from or cite many of the above publications within this space as time goes by. I will always give credit where it's due.
Among the many books I've already read this year are Common Sense by Thomas Paine (the original version, not the updated, trendy version with glib commentary by Glenn Beck), Liberty vs. Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark Levin, The Strain by Guillermo del Toro, The Allies of Humanity, Vol 2 by Marshall V. Summers, The Nine and Happiness Is a Warm Gun, 2 parts of a 3-part series, Sinister Forces, by Peter Levenda.
Additionally, I read several literary and news magazines and periodicals of a political nature with a mostly conservative viewpoint (the news magazines, that is), They include Commentary, The National Review, The Limbaugh Letter, Kenyon Review, The American Spectator, Parabola, Downbeat, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, Poets & Writers, The Writer's Digest, Lapham's Quarterly, The Southwest Review, The Paris Review, Scientific American, Foreign Relations, The Philosopher's Magazine, and Ploughshares. I know I'm missing several in this list, just as I didn't name all the books I've read this year in the above paragraph.
Suffice it to say, I'm a reader. I also listen fairly faithfully to the following online radio shows: The Fred Thompson Experience, The Mark Levin Show, Alex Jones on Prison Planet TV, Lee Rogers on Oracle Broadcasting, and a lot of Coast to Coast AM. Suffice it to say, I'm a listener, too. The learning process is an ongoing event, and a fertile mind is a terrible thing to waste. I will most likely quote from or cite many of the above publications within this space as time goes by. I will always give credit where it's due.
You've got to start somewhere
I just watched the 1984 film version of the movie "1984" on the Atlas Shrugged web site. In the film, Winston Smith, the protagonist, begins a journal of his account of the Age of New Speak, the Age of Big Brother, the Age of the Dead. Given the uncanny and numerous parallels between Orwell's distopian vision and today's actual situation, I am inspired to do the same as Smith.
I've made many abortive attempts at handwritten journals in the past, but early on, I lost the motivation to keep it going. It's hard to predict the fate of this online attempt. If history bears out, it won't last long. On the other hand, I may find the motivation within myself or in the outrageous events in the world around me to keep me going.
As a personal introduction, let me say I am a Cancer, astrologically, having been born on 14 July 1950. While I am not a follower of any daily, computer-generated Horoscopes, I have done just enough research into the subject to be aware that we are affected by relationships of the stars and planets. Most of the character traits listed for Cancer men apply to me. That's why I mention it. Having been born midway through the last century, most of my values are reflective of a world vastly foreign to this one. I was born and raised in a small town in North Central Indiana and was the 2nd born of seven children to a couple who remained married to one another until Dad died. Dad was a school teacher and Mom stayed at home raising all those kids until the first four (boys) moved out. She then became a nurse and worked until she retired due to Dad's declining health.
As a child, I played outside, riding bikes and trading comic books and baseball cards with my brothers and buddies in the neighborhood. Everyone around us worked for a living and came home at the end of the day or night. Most went to church on Sundays or thought they probably should. Kids went to school and said the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the day, standing, hands over their hearts. A prayer followed the Pledge, all heads bowed. Teachers were absolute authorities over their classrooms and their was no talking back. Order was taken for granted. It was a rare and weak teacher with a doomed career who couldn't keep absolute command over his or her classroom.This was PUBLIC SCHOOL .
Families stayed in touch and took care of one another. Neighbors mostly spoke over the back fence or at the small Mom & Pop shops which were still everywhere. Men talked politics at the barber shop or at the hardware store or sitting around a potbelly stove at the shoe repair shop where the cobbler, Karl Stenzel, smoked cigars behind the counter.
There were no cell phones, computers, or GPS devices. Television was in its infancy and a lot of phone service was party line, on which many people shared the same line. Each household on a party line had a distinctive ring pattern so they'd know if the call was for them. You might pick up the phone to make a call and find another conversation in progress. You politely and quietly hung up.
Like I say, it was a different world, a safer world, a saner world, one to which I can compare this one. I'm sorry for the young today who never knew such a world. They may believe the world they've been born into is the only one possible, just as I did. Oh, sure my Grandparents were around, and they described a world which was technologically different from mine, but people were much the same and their dreams weren't so different from my generation's. I would listen to their stories and feel the nostalgia in their hearts and I could feel my world as a continuation of theirs. I don't feel this one as a continuation of mine. Values and priorities are completely different. Such traits as honor and nobility of character are obsolete. Ethics are entirely situational. Politicians have always been liars, but dissimulation and obfuscation on such a grand scale as today and as readily regurgitated by main stream media and believed by the masses leaves me shaking my head in sadness and wonder.
I've said enough for now, but my comments and observations as time moves on will help you to get to know me. Good health to ready readers.
I've made many abortive attempts at handwritten journals in the past, but early on, I lost the motivation to keep it going. It's hard to predict the fate of this online attempt. If history bears out, it won't last long. On the other hand, I may find the motivation within myself or in the outrageous events in the world around me to keep me going.
As a personal introduction, let me say I am a Cancer, astrologically, having been born on 14 July 1950. While I am not a follower of any daily, computer-generated Horoscopes, I have done just enough research into the subject to be aware that we are affected by relationships of the stars and planets. Most of the character traits listed for Cancer men apply to me. That's why I mention it. Having been born midway through the last century, most of my values are reflective of a world vastly foreign to this one. I was born and raised in a small town in North Central Indiana and was the 2nd born of seven children to a couple who remained married to one another until Dad died. Dad was a school teacher and Mom stayed at home raising all those kids until the first four (boys) moved out. She then became a nurse and worked until she retired due to Dad's declining health.
As a child, I played outside, riding bikes and trading comic books and baseball cards with my brothers and buddies in the neighborhood. Everyone around us worked for a living and came home at the end of the day or night. Most went to church on Sundays or thought they probably should. Kids went to school and said the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the day, standing, hands over their hearts. A prayer followed the Pledge, all heads bowed. Teachers were absolute authorities over their classrooms and their was no talking back. Order was taken for granted. It was a rare and weak teacher with a doomed career who couldn't keep absolute command over his or her classroom.This was PUBLIC SCHOOL .
Families stayed in touch and took care of one another. Neighbors mostly spoke over the back fence or at the small Mom & Pop shops which were still everywhere. Men talked politics at the barber shop or at the hardware store or sitting around a potbelly stove at the shoe repair shop where the cobbler, Karl Stenzel, smoked cigars behind the counter.
There were no cell phones, computers, or GPS devices. Television was in its infancy and a lot of phone service was party line, on which many people shared the same line. Each household on a party line had a distinctive ring pattern so they'd know if the call was for them. You might pick up the phone to make a call and find another conversation in progress. You politely and quietly hung up.
Like I say, it was a different world, a safer world, a saner world, one to which I can compare this one. I'm sorry for the young today who never knew such a world. They may believe the world they've been born into is the only one possible, just as I did. Oh, sure my Grandparents were around, and they described a world which was technologically different from mine, but people were much the same and their dreams weren't so different from my generation's. I would listen to their stories and feel the nostalgia in their hearts and I could feel my world as a continuation of theirs. I don't feel this one as a continuation of mine. Values and priorities are completely different. Such traits as honor and nobility of character are obsolete. Ethics are entirely situational. Politicians have always been liars, but dissimulation and obfuscation on such a grand scale as today and as readily regurgitated by main stream media and believed by the masses leaves me shaking my head in sadness and wonder.
I've said enough for now, but my comments and observations as time moves on will help you to get to know me. Good health to ready readers.
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