And here's a grudgingly positive review of Gertrude Himmelfarb's new book, which apparently is simply explaining that there were more Enlightenments than the Frenchy one. Well, fair enough, since that happens to be true. But it does sound as if she might be overdoing it...will have to read it.

Way back when the Doc and I first met, we had a nice little spat over David Brooks' arguments for "National Greatness Conservatism". I was moderately in favour, the Doc was against.

Now here comes Herr Brooks once again, advocating what we might call "Hamiltonian Politics". This time I am more convinced that he's right, for 9/11 reasons. Back then it seemed that he was scurrying about for a great task to engage the nation. Now, like it or not, we have one.

It seems to me that this would be just the argument to make to the Center, completely closing out the "Michael Moore Democrats". But I think that the greatest mistake so far of the President and his administration has been their reluctance to make this a truly national fight. All in the interests, I am sure, of not spooking the economy.

It's not too late to think better of the American people.

Fascinating story of the day: Italian mountain climbers discover the bodies of three World War One Austrian soldiers encased and preserved in ice. They've been there since September 1918.

A smart article on Kerry's charge that our economy is equivalent to the Hoover years of the early Depression. Honest historians everywhere should howl at its complete inaccuracy. Tim Kane convincingly blows up the claim here. More telling is his observation:

What were Hoover’s policy responses to the Great Depression? He persuaded Congress to raise the top income tax rate from 25 percent to 63 percent. Hoover also signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, a 40 percent tax on imports. But aren’t higher taxes on the rich and protectionism against outsourcing Kerry’s signature issues? Every time outsourcing is mentioned in this campaign, voters should recognize Hoover’s fingerprints on the Kerry economic agenda.

Kerry is no JFK, he's HH.

Yarr

I'm involved in a little pirate shindig a few weeks from now and was idly surfing the Internet when I ran across this:

Grog Recipe

Ingredients
2floz rum
1 organic sugar lump
the juice of half an organic lemon
2 cloves
small stick of cinnamon

Method
Put all the ingredients into a heat proof mug and fill with boiling water. If preferred serve in a strong tumbler when the drink has cooled a little (so as not to break the glass).

And then it struck me. What? No organic rum? Is no distillery fulfilling this vital need?

Update: Google answers all questions. There is not one but at least three organic rums.

First from the island of Grenada, Rivers Royal Grenadian Rum .

And then from deepest Paraguay (yet in a Sainsbury's near you!) (Note also the organic gin and vodka.)

And best yet an organic AND fair trade rum from Brazil!

How my little libertarian friends would cheer at this happy news of yet another triumph of the market, if they didn't loathe organic food almost as much as they loathe NASA. I am opposed to the organic loonies foisting organic foods on everyone, but you want to pay twice the price for organic out of your own pocket, I say God bless and don't mind me as I roll about on the floor laughing in the line behind you when you purchase "organic" ethyl alcohol for health reasons. (Have you not seen Bruce Ames' work on what causes cancer?)

The bizarre tale of "Indiana time" is worth a peek at Dog's Life, all the more interesting since I now live within that rarest of Hoosier places, one of the 5 counties (out of 92, I believe) who operate under Central Time and use Daylight Savings. Here's the map.

Seems poor old St. Christopher was rooked by the post-Vatican II purge of his sanctification. Did anything good happen in 1969? I'm still thinking.

Here's a surprise: a group of pastors and religious leaders held a conference on the question, "How would Jesus vote?" Seems they think the Savior would go Kerry. I disagree, of course. Jesus was a monarchist. He wouldn't vote at all. It was, after all, the Kingdom of Heaven he was helping us toward, not the People's Republic of Heaven. Long live the King. Sort of reminds me of that earlier canard of "What would Jesus drive?" foisted by the anti-SUV crowd. To which I always answered, either an SUV or van -- how else could you fit all the disciples into one vehicle?

Happy Birthday former British Prime Minister Lord John Russell, PM 1846-1852 and 1865:

Immediately after the repeal of the Corn Laws Peel resigned and Russell became Prime Minister at the head of a Whig administration. During this first premiership (1846-1852), he helped pass legislation limiting working hours in factories in the 1847 Factory Act and was responsible for the passing of the Public Health Act of 1848. This ministry also ended restrictions on colonial trade by repealing the Navigation Acts in 1849.

His government's efforts to prevent widespread starvation as a result of the Irish famine of 1846-1847 were ineffective. Russell's alternate support for and dissent from Aberdeen's government policies during the Crimean War (1854-46) caused him to lose the leadership of the Liberal party to Viscount Palmerston.

As foreign secretary (1859-1865) under Palmerston, he supported Italian Unification and antagonised the United States during the American Civil War by actions that seemed to favour the Confederacy. He retired from political office after briefly heading a second ministry in 1865-1866 but continued to sit in the House of Lords where he spoke on a variety of issues until he died on 28 May 1878.

Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker has penned an exceptionally eloquent review essay of the latest World War One history that has emerged in the last several years. And although it is simple, doesn't his formulation of how historians and politcians view the two great wars of the 20th century weigh heavily on how people look at wars (and the threat of them) today?

The First World War teaches that territorial compromise is better than full-scale war, that an “honor-bound” allegiance of the great powers to small nations is a recipe for mass killing, and that it is crazy to let the blind mechanism of armies and alliances trump common sense. The Second teaches that searching for an accommodation with tyranny by selling out small nations only encourages the tyrant, that refusing to fight now leads to a worse fight later on, and that only the steadfast rejection of compromise can prevent the natural tendency to rush to a bad peace with worse men. The First teaches us never to rush into a fight, the Second never to back down from a bully ... Every time a Western politician with any historical sense faces a crisis, he has to decide whether he should back down and search for whatever compromise he can find, for fear of repeating 1914, or step up and slug somebody, for fear of repeating 1939. John Kennedy, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, had Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” as a warning at his bedside, but he also had his generals around him muttering about Munich.

And how about this for fascinating: archaeologists have discovered a cave once used by John the Baptist to baptize followers.

Alas dear Julia is no longer with us , but her contributions to the noble art of cooking shall be ever with us.

Don't forget: it's Burry Man day! Sees the scapegoat; he's the kid!

Been meaning to pick this book up: WSJ gives Forrest McDonald's autobiography a ringing review. Put it on your list.

A lost medieval city of nearly 400 buildings has been unearthed in Monmouthshire, Wales, perhaps one of the region's largest cities in the 13th century.

Call the press: couples won't get married in this modernist church because it is ugly. Imagine that.

What is the world coming to? C-SPAN is cancelling "Booknotes." Our little bright corner of literacy and civilization just dimmed a bit.

Let me hike up my chiton and toddle up to the wall to give my best Cassandra proclamation on the news out of my native state that McGreevey is resigning from the governorship because he is gay....

No sorry, waves of hilarity are causing me to clutch the battlements, ruining my moment of solemnity. Let's skip the atmosphere and cut right to the reading of the entrails: McGreevey's not resigining because he's gay; he's resigning because he's a crook.

Let me be clear. McGreevey is a CROOK. And a heel and a low crawling slimy thing who would use anything to obscure his real motives for resignation.

Most news organizations are running around appaluding his "bravery" and gay organizations are rallying behind the gov. Fools! You're being used like a human shield during a bank holdup.

McGreevey resigned because he's initimately involved in a corruption scandal, so vast and blatant that even New Jersey can't ignore it, which just goes to show how vast and blatant it must be. The corruption scandal was poised to break right before the election, and there were good odds that it would have had a profoundly negative effect on the Democratic party in NJ and could even hurt Kerry's chances in NJ. McGreevey's sudden declaration of his homosexuality is his (and I suspect ultimately the Dem. party's) bid to obscure the corruption scandal by a sex scandal and also a clever move to take control of the resignation date. Instead of being forced out and a special election being called, McGreevey has annouced he will resign Nov. 15th so a special election can't be held.

How bad is the situation in NJ? It's SO BAD that even the NY Times gets it. And NPR mentioned the Kerry connection this morning.

I honestly don't know if anyone has said this yet, but are there Scots Jacobites now naming hurricanes? Bonnie Charlie? Apparently there are '45ers at the National Hurricane Center. Rise and follow Charlie!

Interesting book review in the Washington Post about how history textbooks from around the world say startingly different things about U.S. history. In itself, I guess, that is not too startling, but this article echoes the book's thesis (called History Lessons) that the texts are too insular and nationalistic. Perhaps, but that seems to miss the whole point of who is writing these texts, usually well-known and prosperous history professors. Which makes one wonder about Canadian historians:

According to Canadian texts (six are cited), the United States planned to conquer and annex Canada during the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and at various points in between. During the Cold War, the United States repeatedly bullied Canada into supporting its aggressive military policies. Canadian officials hoped that NATO would evolve into a North Atlantic community that would act as a counterweight to U.S. influence in Canada, but in vain: Canadian governments had to toe the U.S. line or suffer humiliation. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, concerned that Kennedy's belligerence might lead to a nuclear war, waited three days before announcing that Canadian forces had gone on the alert. In the next election, the Americans used their influence to topple the truculent prime minister. Diefenbaker's successor, Lester Pearson, aligned Canada more closely with the United States, but in 1965 he annoyed Lyndon Johnson by calling for a bombing pause and a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam War. In a meeting after the speech, Johnson grabbed Pearson by the lapels and shouted, "You pissed on my rug."

And you wonder why young Canadians don't like us.

Just when you'd think Anglican bishops would have far better things to do with their time and pulpit (like save the Communion from schism perhaps), one bishop wants Britons to stop singing "I Vow To Thee My Country" because It's saying my country right or wrong. I don't think anybody could actually say they could adopt an approach whereby they said they would not ask any questions of their government and their policies and so on ... The government under the Queen in this country is actually the representation of this country and it has all the... echoes of 1930s nationalism in Germany and some of the nastier aspects of right wing republicanism in the United States. I'll leave aside the anti-American barb, because it makes absolutely zero sense. Bereft of any historical perspective or common sense, the bishop apparently sees no qualitative difference between Weimer Germany and 2004 Britain. It's all of the same cloth to him. Here's the hymn (listen here), judge for yourself:

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love:
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.

Shocking, isn't it? Such reckless language, such violent imagery...

Global warming is killing grouse, and deep-sixing the "Glorious Twelfth." Right. Isn't it possible to have a damp summer and not have it mean apocalypse? I mean, it was cloudly here in Indiana yesterday, and I don't think it meant anything more than a passing cold front. We had a lot of snow two years ago in NH, and not as much this year. Must fluctuation always mean something global and nightmarish? Sometimes it just rains.

Remember Killington, Vermont? The town attempting to secede to New Hampshire because Vermont state taxes are too high? Add another. Dorset, Vermont is planning to join the secession movement.

Doesn't this make you want to visit Manhattan ... at least for one Tuesday ... the bowties (check), the cocktails (check), the Château Peyraguey and strawberries (I wish). Fogeys of the world unite!

Speaking of the French, parasites benefit by sharing .

Also, children, vegetable pop rocks are coming soon to a store near you. They are supposed to help children to eat their vegetables. Personally if I bit into a fizzing celery, I'd never touch the stuff again.

Ah the French. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: there are no other more consistently amusing people on the face on the Earth than the French. If they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them, but would it be possible for us to create a people so inherently comic? I think not.

And when it comes to amusement, there is no finer spectacle than the French ripping on the French. They do it with such...elan. I have a friend who hails from France and by the time she finishes her latest critique of the French: their manners, their attitudes, their cleanliness, their government, the general sheep like behavior of the people, even my German genes feel sorry for the French. Once I felt so sorry for the French that I said out loud something vaguely positive about the French and the resulting blistering counter attack lasted a good 5 minutes. It made me appreciate what Caesar went through during the Gallic Wars.

The French are beating themselves up this summer with the question, what does it mean to be French? Niall Ferguson took on the question of the flatlined French economy a few days ago, echoing the same theme and calling it the "atheist sloth ethic." Good stuff as always.

And how about the stir created by Austrialian historian Keith Windschuttle in down under academic circles, attacking the academic establishment for fabricating Austrialian genocide of Aboriginal tribes in the 19th century. Says the Austrialian article:

With the passage of time, the academic history profession is far from over the history wars. An extraordinary number in its ranks believe they have been been damaged by populist history propounded by Windschuttle. They are searching for a way out. Only a few seem brave enough to speak up, arguing that freedom of expression is the primary issue.

Um, no it is not. Freedom to express falsehoods? How about accuracy? How about the slipshod denigration of Windschuttle's work by airly calling it "populist history," meaning it is read by the "great unwashed" not just profs?

It continues:

"There is an understandable public concern about the accuracy of historians' work," he says. At the same time, Macintyre maintains, Windschuttle fits with a conservative agenda to lift a burden of national shame from Australian shoulders over the Aboriginal issue.

Macintyre told the conference the history wars fitted in with broader "political dimensions" of the Howard Government's "abandonment of reconciliation, denial of the stolen generations, its retreat from multiculturalism and creation of a refugee crisis".

"Windschuttle was the first conservative intellectual to base his case on substantial historical research," he says.

Windschuttle says this is precisely why the academic community is still so scared of him. "There is a whole generation who have invested not just their academic capital but also their political capital in the Henry Reynolds view," he says. And, says Windschuttle, he has made Australian history interesting again for high school students who are more likely to go on to study it in universities.

While not referring to the Windschuttle debate, NSW Premier Bob Carr, a longstanding history buff, said much the same thing at the conference.

"History is an argument and the more argument there is in it the more young people will read it," he said.

Heaven forbid.

Here's a good one: Vermont man stops cop and asks to be arrested for drunk driving.

Skip the cheese, eat the wrapper

Soon you will not have to unwrap those pesky cheese singles. You'll just be popping them onto your sandwich without unwrapping them, and be doing yourself a nutritional favor in the process.

It is doubtful however that this new edible food film technology will have any effect on the "Stonner" a 1,000-calorie, deep fried pork sausage kebab that all the rage in Glasgow. Round off the meal with a fried Mars Bars and an Irn-Bru and you'll be ready to shout "freedom" too. Too many of them though, and you might not look that grand in a kilt.

Some fans don't like it that their favorite singers and bands are boosting Kerry -- concert boycotts this fall?

British reaction against expansion of innane slang over standard English (and yes, there is such a thing) -- my favorite "reader reaction" from BBC: Hopefully it can stop the annoying craze of saying "innit" after every single sentence. Simon , High Wycombe

Happy Birthday Herbert Hoover. One of Harding's biggest mistakes was putting HH in the Cabinet as Commerce Secretary in 1921. "Wonder Boy," as the wry Coolidge called him, approached the '29 Crash as an engineer, tried to fix it, and ended up making it far, far worse.

Nix to New Urbanism

"Smart growth is something people want," said Marsha McLaughlin, Howard County's planning director, who had supported more homes on the property. "They just don't want it in their own neighborhood." Not even Sierra Club members.

We have arrived. We are Hoosiers now.

Moving must be one of life's more miserable moments: the evaluation of everything you own on whether it's worth keeping or not, the interminable trips to the dump, the likewise interminable trips to the liquor store for boxes, the endless packing of those same boxes. Then you get the truck (ours was far too small -- we seriously underestimated how many things/books we had) and begin an all-day stuffing of it, putting things in strategic places, hoping against hope it all fits (it didn't). At the day's end you clean up the now empty house and hand over the keys.

Next day, you begin bright and early and head west, suffering recurrent heart attacks while driving behind your truck as you watch it sway back and forth going over highway bumps (please God, don't let it tip over on the NY Thruway). The trip takes two days, about 20 hours, and when you arrive, you are exhausted. The unpacking begins, always quicker than packing, and you are overjoyed when you begin to see the back of the truck.

Four days of hell, but it is over and things are calming down. Time to rest up, set up shop, and begin life anew.

Call Me Unreliable

The dear Doc sends out a plea to his colleagues to fill the blogging void as he travels westward to become a stranger in a strange land, and his plea is met with...silence. We should at least have posted a meditative passage. Perhaps "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. " would have been appropriate.

It seems an approprite passage to describe the politics of opera as well, which will be on display in a new book by Howard Breslin, the former agent of Pavarotti. The book's due to come out in October, but this just means you have time to read Manuela Hoelterhoff's highly entertaining description of Breslin in Cinderella and Company before he gets to give his own take on the matter.