The Way Is Hidden By Its Obviousness

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Acres of Raccoons,

and to the den for which it stands,

one masked nation,

impenetrable,

secure under Slack,

with truth, beauty and goodness for all.

MOO!

the sound of the no bovine unringing cowbell

Amigos, The cows and I have come home long enough to write this message:


During the Lenten blogfast the GA blog quietly passed the one year anniversary mark, and now the time has come for me to officially announce its closing. Wuz up, you ask? Well, for one, this summer I'll be coming out of retirement to assume duties of part-time art teacher at a small Christian primary school just 8 blocks from the cottage. I feel like I'm being thrown into the briar patch. Truly, I'm very honored to have this marvelous opportunity to cultivate a few more little peeps' aesthetic sensibilities.

Thanks to all my visitors, especially all seven regulars, for making the Gobsmacked Again experience so educational and so much fun. You've been really wonderful!

P. S. Below is a peek at Springtime in Mayberry and the little church school where I'll be slackin'. Enjoy!

Snow fell on the cottage on March 6th

A week later the Bradford Pear trees burst into bloom

-o.o-

This retrospective, revolving exhibit of 40 photographs will hang here until Easter.

[ Lent 'still' album link.]

May we live in an auspicious state resulting in favorable outcomes.

-o.o-

Shrove Tuesday

Alas, we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire our own spirits, for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me see within this short time, is worth a world of worlds. 

         

Samuel Rutherford

-o.o-

CIVICS 101

KATY, Texas
Nottingham Elementary School
Grade 4

James Lileks is our guest lecturer today. He's going to talk about the Liberal Democrat position and the Conservative Republican position.

It’s interesting that personal freedom and economic freedom are seen as competing values. You could argue that economic freedom makes personal freedom possible. Go ahead; I won’t stop you. It seems to set up a false dichotomy: if your economic life is completely controlled by the state but you can film yourself sawing wombats in a legal brothel with your six wives watching, you’re personally free. Even if 95% of your income has been taken out of your clumsy little hands and placed in general public trust.

Hands up.

Yes Aidan, what's your question?

Are the Democrats like the UK Labor Party? I heard my Nanny telling my Dad last night that the British government is giving money to a man with lots of wives. I don't want more than one Mommy and I already have a Nanny. Does that make me a Conservative?

Yes, Aidan it does.

Bell rings.

Class dismissed.

-o.o-

One More Time

“America will not be conquered by the sword, but by da’wa.”
Muslim Brotherhood founder, Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, 1995

Unpacking Da'wa inside America one • more • time.

-o.o-

∞ Cloud Cuckoo Land ∞

Where's that and who are its inhabitants? I'll let one of my favorite free women, Joan of Argghh explain.

If you don't get it, then read this.

If you still don't get it, then you inhabit Cloud Cuckoo Land and Dr. Phil can not help you.

-o.o-

Between Super Bowl and Super Tuesday

Saturday, sunny and 75º:   Broke in my new MBT walking shoes. After rocking, but mostly rolling around 2 blocks in the hood, underused muscles were talking to me, so I gave them a rest and drove to Target, cause it's less crowded than Wal Mart on Saturday afternoon. Rolling errands is better than running errands.

Saturday night: Watched Bruce Willis survive death dealing attacks from a mad, jilted, gov bureaucrat and his hirelings. Bruce rocks.

Sunday:  As part of my plan to avoid sinking any further into fogey reclusiveness , I went to a live theater production with Sis, BnL and their new friend Ray. I sat next to Ray and felt no chemistry, but noticed we both laughed at the same poetic ironies in On Golden Pond.

Sunday night Sis emailed me a story about a Texas mayor 'gone bad'. Background story here. The Alice mayor resigned Friday night, but this story is far from over. A hearing is set to decide who gets custody of the dog at the center of this Shih Tzu storm.

If Sandra was Buena Gente, she'd give "Puddles" back to his rightful owners. Hey Bruce?

-o.o-

Remembering Each Other

"Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long accustomed to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe . . . They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish . . . They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the enemy." Lee Harris, Civilization and Its Enemies : The Next Stage of History, published 2004


Belgian journalist Paul Belien, one of Europe's most insightful commentators reminds us who The Enemy is:

In Europe a secularized post-Christian culture is facing a Muslim one. The secularized culture is hedonist and values only its present life, because it does not believe in an afterlife. This is why it will surrender when threatened with death because life is the only thing it has to lose. This is why it will accept submission without fighting for its freedom. Nobody fights for the flag of hedonism, not even the hedonists themselves.

So who's left to fight for freedom? A thought provoking recollection at American Thinker.

UPDATE: Don't miss this excellent comment by kindle at Ezra Levant's website about the Harris article I linked at The Weekly Standard.

-o.o-

Camouflaged

You know sometimes
I can smell something cooking,



I can tell there's going to be a feast.
You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

He got a sweet gift of gab, he got a harmonious tongue,
He knows every song of love that ever has been sung.
Good intentions can be evil,
Both hands can be full of grease.
You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Bob Dylan

-o.o-

Mizz E's Mystic Vittle Refectory Meditation

Since we can still get rice, let's put some country gravy made with milk on it, with a side of skillet pork chops, buttered baby lima beans and be eternally grateful for country, family, food and friends. Amen.

-o.o-

Every Suitcase Tells a Story

Unpacking Catholic Cargo

No man desires anything so eagerly as God desires to bring men to the knowledge of Himself. God is always ready, but we are very unready. God is near us, but we are far from Him. God is within, and we are without. God is friendly; we are estranged.

- Meister Eckhart

Avery Cardinal Dulles

-o.o-

Best and Worst of the Best

WARNING: This list will undermine my credibility as a film critic.

WORST ACTORS

5th place: Lee Marvin - Great Marine; bad actor. No breadth; no depth.

4th place: William Hurt - BORING BORING BORING

3rd place: Ernest Borgnine - Ever since his first film role as Fatzo in From Here to Eternity it's been down hill.

2nd place: Marlon Brando - Boorish, mumbling oaf.

1st place: Sean Penn - What a no nothing talent. If you saw his performance of Willie Stark in All the Kings Men, you know what I'm talking about. Broderick Crawford he's not. (Best Actor 1949: Broderick Crawford for All the King's Men)


BEST ACTORS

I've been in a snit, brought on by the constraint of having to choose from The List of previous Best Actor winners and the fact that my first choice is not on the list. It ain't right. What we have here is a huge culture failure.



Here's the Baker's Dozen and notes to myself I started with to help me work through my despair.


1934: Clark Gable - Nothing effete about Clark Gable, baby.

1937: Spencer Tracy - It's been said "actors have noted that Tracy's work in 1930s films sometimes looks like a modern actor interacting with the more stylized and dated performances of everyone around him." Amazing, that was my exact reaction last week while watching Captains Courageous, for the first time.

1940: James Stewart - After viewing It's a Wonderful Life, President Harry S. Truman concluded, “If Bess and I had a son, we'd want him to be just like Jimmy Stewart.“ Well, there you go.

1941: Gary Cooper - "...What we done in France we had to do. And some as done it, didn't come back. And that kind of thing ain't for buying and selling."
Sargeant York, American hero.

1951: Humphrey Bogart - "Well, I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble..." Maltese Falcon

1953: William Holden: Could make you believe in the infinite possibilities of love and getting out of a POW camp.

1960: Burt Lancaster - "Brave, vigorous, handsome, and an actor of great range, Lancaster never yielded in his immaculate splendor, proud to be a movie actor. He was one of the great stars. Perhaps the last." — David Thomson

1964: Rex Harrison - A civilized man.

Professor Henry Higgins: Mother!
Mrs. Higgins: What is it, Henry? What's happened?
Professor Henry Higgins: [quietly] She's gone.
Mrs. Higgins: Well, of course, dear, what did you expect?
Professor Henry Higgins: What... what am I to do?
Mrs. Higgins: Do without, I suppose.
[pause]
Professor Henry Higgins: And so I shall! If the Higgins oxygen burns up her little lungs, let her seek some stuffiness that suits her. She's an owl sickened by a few days of my sunshine. Let her go, I can do without her. I can do without anyone. I have my own soul! My own spark of divine fire!
[storms outs]

1969: John Wayne - Imagine American film without John Wayne.  Impossible. Neither complains nor seeks to be pitied; he will speak simply and truly of his trouble, without exaggerating its weight or bemoaning himself. If others pity him, he will accept their compassion patiently, unless they pity him for some ill he is not enduring, in which case he will say so with meekness, and abide in patience and truthfulness, combating his grief and not complaining of it. [a de Sales quote]

1983: Robert Duvall - I'll feel like I'm betraying Gus if I don't pick him.

1986: Paul Newman - remember Chance Wayne? Hud? Luke?  The right stuff.

1989: Daniel Day-Lewis - "Hawkeye" - huge liquidating the enemy, coming to a woman's aid and hubba-hubba factor.

2000: Russell Crowe - only actor who ever showed up in one of my dreams. Yes, I surrendered completely to Capt. Jack Aubrey.
###


How I made my final selection

I imagined a film, an epic for our time, and asked myself who could deliver these lines, make it relevant to the audience and inspire hope in humanity. The working title: "Tourbillon"; tagline - Banality of Evil

"No six-foot brownshirt, no police cell at midnight. Just Shirlene McGovern, an amiable enough bureaucrat, casually asking me about my political thoughts on behalf of the government. And she'll write up a report about it, and recommend that the government do this or that to me. Just going through checklists, you see ... a limp clerk who was just punching the clock. She had done it dozens of times before and will do it dozens of times again. In a way, that's more terrifying." **

Placed No. 5 - Russell Crowe

No. 4 - Burt Lancaster

No. 3 - Paul Newman

No. 2 - Spencer Tracy

No. 1 - Humphrey Bogart

**

-o.o-

Up Around the Bend

I've lined up some projects that, thankfully, will take my focus off the run-up cacophony.

Sal and I are participating in this poll she found at The Sheila Variations. You might wanna play too, so check it out.

I'm also going to take a break from the GA blog for a while - I'm feeling a bit drained and uninventive. My next post, [sometime between now and February 1st] will be my list of the 5 Best/5 Worst.

Here's one thought I've had about the actors worthy of my forthcoming list:

A lot of sharp peeps think Marlon Brando is the No. 1 Best Actor of all time, but I can't agree.  I don't go in for the brooding, alienating, intense, out of control or firmly in control kinds of men that he portrayed, however so well.

Anyway, while I'm away from the helm, I won't be away, away, just up around the bend.

-o.o-