McCain's New Deal

McCain is a moron:

Item: Don't drill in ANWR - it's like the Grand Canyon.
Item: Offering 13m+ illegals a route citizenship to will help solve illegal immigration.
And now:

"Investigation is underway to root out this kind of reckless wagering [in commodities], unrelated to any kind of productive commerce, because it can distort the market, drive prices beyond rational limits, and put the investments and pensions of millions of Americans at risk," [McCain] will say in the speech, according to excerpts the campaign provided yesterday.
I don't think he's senile, just a stupid populist. I don't know if Romney could do well on his ticket unless McCain cedes the economy.

The God of Days

Bah! Humbug! Another Day, another dollar..what is it this time? Fathers' Day? Flag Day? Piffle! These Days are ersatz. So is Presidents' Day, MLK Day, Washington's Birthday, Armed Forces Day and most of the rest. The secular Days that resonate are, in order of importance, April Fools' Day (wit and invention), Guy Fawkes' Night (bonfires and explosions), Halloween (mischief and scariness) and Valentine's Day (let osculation thrive). Remembrance Day (poppies and an empty tomb) stands alone. I don't think Memorial Day bears the same weight. Thanksgiving pings in my head, but not yet my heart.

Cards, poems and presents are good, providing they're homemade and the exception not the rule. Oh for the courage to apply that to Christmas!

But the rightful God of secular Days is Loki.

First they came...

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

I have seen Martin Niemoller's poem in 2 contexts today:

1. It is cited by Stephen Bainbridge in defence of the Supreme Court's conferral of habeas corpus on enemy combatants who are not US citizens. A commenter writes:

Considering how much opposition has arisen to even the denial of habeas relief to enemy combatants—which denial is amply supported by legal precedent—I believe the odds that the next step would have been infringement of the habeas rights of American citizens are at exactly zero.
In present-day Germany, the Nazi Party is prohibited. By your logic, Germany is again on an inevitable course back to dictatorship and genocide. “First they came for the Nazis, then they came for the Christian Democrats, then they came for the Social Democrats....”

2. It is cited against the UK government's legislation to extend the suspension of habeas corpus under The Prevention Of Terrorism Act from 20 days to 42 days. Actually I am more sympathetic to this citation. The legislation is presumed to target Islamic terrorists, who are probably UK citizens, and I, like most, hate their guts just for their ideology (Islamist guts, that is - the UK government has none to hate) even if they are law-abiding, so I'm happy if they suffer. Western Islamists simply game the freedoms of their host to hollow it out, so why should the freedoms apply to them? Good question, but that issue should be dealt with by a discriminatory immigration policy and the ditching of multi-culturalism, not by drastic empowerment of the Executive over citizens. In this case the poem applies:

They came for Moslems and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Moslem.

Footnote: Re-reading this I see that I'm slippery in eliding the terms 'Islamic', 'Islamist' and 'Moslem', so let me be clear: an Islamist is a Moslem who wants rule me or kill me. In fact almost all my interactions with Moslems are delightful, the Egyptian I played football with last night in New Jersey, the Moroccan store owner in London, the ship's crew in Djibouti, the Kuwaitis I bought oil from...and on and on...but maybe not the sinister-looking disaffected Moslem youth in The Hague who headbutted me when I interfered with a group of them who were stealing a hat from a frightened Dutchman in a cinema queue of passive onlookers in broad daylight. It's a fond memory as my head has been hardened by decades of full contact soccer like a conker pre-soaked in vinegar. Ah, memories.

Leadership in a democracy

David Davis is the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. He wil resign his seat in the House of Commons to fight a by-election on the single issue of the government's proposed legislation to increase to 42 days the limit of detention of terrorism suspects without charge. While there can be other views on the specifics, his general points are spot on. Davis is a bigger man than David Cameron who won the leadership election, heavily plugged by the BBC as a 'compasionate conservative' - ie socially liberal. This deed will brand Davis as a leader and may draw a historic line in the sand against state control of justice.

Davis has led a real life in the Army and in business. His type restores one's faith in mainstream politics.

Duckblogging

A Muscovy Duck showed up on our lawn. When I asked if he'd vote for Obama, he just looked at me.

Dogblogging

Trixie in the bath.

True myths of New York

A couple of days ago a Frenchman scaled the New York Times building with a banner reading “Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week”. The climb was technically trivial and the banner was appropriately lame for the venue.

Contrast the tale of Philippe Petit who walked and danced across the high wire which he'd rigged between the Twin Towers in 1974. His motive was as light as Mallory's 'because it's there' about Everest - 'When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk.' The image of the young man in the sky is a charm against the image of 9/11.

Another sky-dancer is Pale Male, the Red Tailed Hawk which nests at 927 Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park and has fathered 26 offspring by 4 mates despite attempted eviction.

I commend the lovely books on these 2 heroes, both of whom still thrive:The Man Who Walked Between the Towers and Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City.

Uncorrelated.com down

Most of my stuff is cross-posted at uncorrelated.com which actually has a readership. Right now that site is down due to an obscure technical quibble by the hosting company. I wonder if there's a political motive. Maestro Mick Stockinger is on the job. Me, I can do without Movable Type and hosting companies. Blogger works fine.

Holkham beach, Norfolk, UK

This is Holkham beach, scene of the last shots of a favourite movie, Shakespeare In Love. The beach stands in both for the New World to which duty and her father drive Gwynneth Paltrow away from Shakespeare and love and for the coast of Illyria in Twelfth Night, which Shakespeare is just imagining. From the film script by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard:

My story starts at sea,
a perilous voyage
to an unknown land.
A shipwreck.
The wild waters roar and heave.
The brave vessel
is dashed all to pieces,
and all the helpless souls
within her...
drowned.
All save one:
a lady...
whose soul is greater
than the ocean,
and her spirit,
stronger than the sea's embrace.
Not for her a watery end,
but a new life beginning
on a stranger shore.
lt will be a love story,
for she will be my heroine
for all time.

An unexpected call

My friend Gombu Sherpa rang me today from 7000m on Everest. He's General Leader of The First Inclusive Women's Sagarmatha Expedition 2008 Climbing leader is Pemba Sherpa, who's made the fastest ascent of Everest.

Gombu was our kitchen boy in 1983 when with a friend I attempted a first ascent in Kanjiroba Himal in W.Nepal. Since then Gombu has overcome more challenges than even Michelle Obama to provide for his extended family and his home village in the Khumbu Himal by becoming a very serious mountaineer, leader and teacher. When I meet him occasionally in Kathmandu or London or Wales I am refreshed. We are hoping to go back to our 1983 target in the near future and try again. He could carry me up like the Yogistani porter in The Ascent of Rum Doodle. His voice today was crystal clear, as tho he were next to me.

Here's a shot of Lhotse's South Face. Everest's top, with a plume of snow flying in the Jet Stream, is seen low behind at the left :

function follows form

What's Farsi for 'metrosexual'?

Chicagoan, Louis Sullivan, 'the first modern architect', said "Form ever follows function.." For Chicagoan, Obama it's different. The form is prime, enveloping function and disfunction in waffle, cultspeak, wuss-speak, groupspeak and bright shining lies. To me he's transparent - a joke, impossible to take more seriously than the idea of an undergraduate as President. John Bolton says it well:

Look, he has led a very cosseted, privileged existence in his life, that this is not somebody born in poverty who was risen by his bootstraps. He’s had, basically, a fairly comfortable middle class life. He’s gone to Ivy League universities, he’s lived in a liberal bubble in Chicago. And you know, you don’t have to acquire a lot of knowledge to be acceptable in those circles, and I think what we’re seeing is, as he emerges from that bubble, we’re seeing his view of reality.