Putting the Garden to Bed

Well, it's finally that time of year. We harvested the last of the peppers and herbs from the garden yesterday. We covered our late season crops of lettuce, spinach and green beans last night against the frost though I think we lost the green beans. It is, of course, near the end of the growing season and to be expected.

This weekend the young squire and I shoveled in a ton and a half of compost to prepare the beds for next season - and more will follow. Soon we will sow the beds with winter rye which I am using as a "green manure" crop to further enrich the soil when we turn it into the beds next spring. I can now see the stone our sundial sits on in the garden - it's the first time I've seen it in the last four months because it has been surrounded by herbs. I have never harvested basil in the last week of October and now it all hangs along the stairs to the cellar awaiting the stock pot.

Even the bees got in on the act by providing us with about one and a half supers of honey which I think should yield around three to three and a half gallons. A sweet ending to a wonderful first season of vegetable gardening.

We're already planning for next year.

Are You A "Mainstream" Environmentalist?

"Rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10 for each statement below, with 10 meaning that you strongly agree with the statement and 1 meaning you strongly disagree.

______ A healthy environment should be able to coexist with a healthy, growing economy.
______ Investments in science and technology will generate solutions to most of our environmental problems.
______ Incentives should be offered to encourage corporations to clean up the environment.
______ Most disagreements about the environment can be resolved through the art of compromise.
______ Governments can play an important role in fostering and incentivizing a healthy environment but lose support when they are too controlling.
______ Democracies have been far better environmental stewards than totalitarian states.
______ Corporate and private philanthropy is essential to the success of a global environmental movement.
______ Most of us have been taught to respect and protect the natural world.
______ Political leadership will be defined in the twenty- first century by having a strong commitment to environmental stewardship.
______ America must be a global leader on environmental issues.

If you scored higher than 70, you qualify to be labeled a ''mainstream environmentalist'' and it makes A Contract with the Earth the perfect for you."

The author - Newt Gingrich.

Grover Norquist

For years I have been saying "I am a big boy who can make his own decisions and all I want the government to do is get their hands out of my pockets and leave me the #&*% alone!" Apparently, that has also been the brain child of Grover Norquist and his "Leave Us Alone Coalition". Mr. Norquist describes the LUA in this article:

"The "Leave Us Alone" coalition includes taxpayers who want the government to reduce the tax burden, property owners, farmers, and homeowners who want their property rights respected, gunowners who want the government to leave them and their guns alone, homeschoolers who wish to educate their own children as they see fit, traditional values conservatives who don't want the government throwing condoms at their children and making fun of their religious values."

"The Left puts forward the fiction that the Right want to force their morality on others. However, the homeschooler movement does not demand that homeschoolers be recognized as an alternative lifestyle. Gunowners do not insist that schools teach ten year olds books entitled "Heather has Two Hunters."

"The good news for friends of liberty is that the "Leave us Alone" coalition is growing. In 1965, only 10 percent of Americans owned shares of stock, in 1980 it was only 20 percent, today 50 percent of Americans own stock in IRAs, 401Ks, and mutual funds. As more and more Americans own shares of stock the politics of hate and envy becomes more difficult. In 1965, a politician could say, "I will steal money from corporations and give it to you," and 90 percent of the people in the room might think this a good idea and only 10 percent would clearly see that they would be paying for this government largesse. Today, the same politician's bluster would find fully half of this audience reacting: "Hey, that is my retirement income you are looting."

You can also read Ed Morrissey's recent post about Mr. Norquist's appearance at the the Conservative Leadership Conference here.

Quote Of The Day

"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."
- General Douglas MacArthur

Newt In Venice

Newt Gingrich and his wife are touring Venice where he had these observations:
"One sign of Venice's longevity is found in two of its most famous private companies. Their diversity is a good reminder of the complexity of high civilizations.

The Segusi family has been making world famous Murano glass for more than 600 years. As family businesses go, that is a record to which to aspire.

The other great historic business in Venice is Beretta, which has been making guns since 1525.

It is a fascinating reality that goes against left-wing sentimentality. Beretta helped make it possible to protect the glassmakers of Murano, and businesses creating wealth made it possible to sustain the art and artists for which Venice is known.

This is a useful dynamic to keep in mind as we go through the next few years' debates."

I knew about Beretta since I own one of their fine shotguns and was already aware that they are one of the oldest gun manufacturers in the world. But I wasn't aware of their larger role in the history of Venice.

Whoopi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will wonders never cease?

Rosie, we hardly knew ye - but what we knew was more than enough. At least this seems to be a move in the right direction.

The "Dissent" School Of Patriotism

This is from Jonah Goldberg at NRO. I could not have said this better myself - and, believe me, I have tried. This post actually delineates the infantile intellectual paralysis which commonly afflicts those on the Left. If you don't believe me, visit Daily Kos, Democratic Underground or the Left leaning site of your choice and then tell me how wrong I am. Emphasis is mine:

"So, Jonah, here's the problem I have all too often with the "dissent is the highest form of patriotism" line. Patriotism, as I see it, is love of country—an actually-existing, historically grounded, geographical, political, and social entity. It's not uncritical, it's not unwilling to acknowledge flaws or misdeeds, but it's a fundamental attachment to an entity, a place, a thing, a group of people, and in the case of America, of course, a set of ideals enshrined in our founding documents.

The "dissent" school seems to acknowledge love not of the actual country, but the Country of the Future, once all the flaws are fixed, which is not only utopian but utterly quixotic, since no group of human beings can ever organize themselves in a fashion without problems. Moreover, it's a very subjective standard. You're dissenting on whatever the hell problem is your own hobby horse. Feminist A is upset about the state of women and is patriotically "dissenting"; Klansman B is upset about the state of white folk, and in his mind, he's equally patriotic in his "dissent." There isn't a hell of a lot in the "dissent" principle that can distinguish the two. A historically-grounded analysis says the feminist is (perhaps) appealing to American ideals of equality while the Klansman is appealing to an ugly tradition of anti-black bigotry, but neither are, in any real sense, showing their love of country. The former may be offering a constructive criticism, the other clearly is proposing a destructive one, but both are equally ideological and neither is expressing a love of America qua America, but rather a love of what they think America should be.

While that's a grand American tradition, I don't think it's patriotism. Moreover, it easily descends into narcissism and paranoia when the messy reality of America meets the pure, pristine clarity of their ideals—"I hate this country so much because it's not the country I want it to be, but because I have in mind the Other Country It Should Be, I'm a patriot of the Ideal America of My Mind.

The great, truly patriotic reformers of American history have the country for what it is despite its flaws, which they dedicated themselves to amending. It's only of late, under the influence of Marxism and the tumult of the '60s (perhaps the Kennedy assassination, if you believe that guy's new book) in which you see large numbers of people expressing the loopy theoretical proposition that you can despise your country out of love for it, which seems to be the bottom line for a lot of petty university-educated intellectuals these days."

And the intellectual Lefts love of "The Country of the Future" might also explain why they are the last bastion of socialism/communism - since it is all quite lovely on paper. But then reality intrudes and "therein lies the rub".

Quote Of The Day

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

- Robert A. Heinlein

Two Kinds Of Patriotism

Jonah Goldberg recently wrote this in an article published by The Los Angeles Times:
"I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness.

Many liberals hear talk of national culture and shout, "Nativist!" first and ask questions later, if at all. They believe it is a sign of their patriotism that they hold fast to the idea that we are a "nation of immigrants" -- forgetting that we are also a nation of immigrants who became Americans."

Treason?

Treason is a very ugly word. Unfortunately, it is currently being thrown around with impunity by all sides of the political discussion in this country. Ed Morrissey offers this very sensible warning:
"We should hold the hyperbole, and assume the best motives whenever possible. That doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize actions and speeches when wrong, or that we should do so with insufficient vigor. It does mean that we should hold the most dire allegations for those who deserve it. Adam Gadahn is a traitor. Robert Byrd and Barack Obama are fools. The two are not synonymous. If we don't recognize that patriotism means love of country regardless of wisdom on policy, then we really will have reduced it to only the last refuge of scoundrels."

Friends Of Fred

Fred sure has some friends over at the American Thinker:

"Conventional wisdom is hardening around the proposition that Fred Dalton Thompson is too lazy, ill-prepared, tired, old, lackluster, inexperienced, inconsistent and bald to make a successful run for President. Of course, conventional wisdom rarely gets anything right. When it does, it's only by accident.

In this case conventional wisdom is not just wrong but comically so. Thompson will win the Republican nomination for two reasons. First, he's a very impressive candidate. Second, there's no realistic alternative. He will win the general election for the same two reasons.

Fred Thompson isn't Ronald Reagan. But he can restore the Republican Party to Reagan's default settings. He can make the GOP once again the party of the American Revolution and distinguish it sharply from the party of the French, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban Revolutions.

After a recent Thompson speech in Iowa a member of the audience called out: "Kill the terrorists, secure the border, and give me back my freedom." Thompson replied "you just summed up my whole speech."

No other candidate could have carried off that quip because no other candidate is capable of delivering a convincing speech focused on those powerful themes.

Certainly Hillary's theme - A kinder, gentler America at home and abroad - can't compete. Socialism never had the electoral appeal in the United States that the chattering class expects it to have. Nowadays it is painfully passe."