Here’s a quick religious joke. This reminds me of some fishing advice. Never invite only one Baptist to fish with you, because he’ll drink all of your beer. Course, if you give him lutheran beer to drink, maybe his doctrine will improve.
All posts by Phil
Difficult Reading
We, the People, may be in serious trouble.
[In a post called “What a Mole,” Patrick] Deneen . . . insisted that the failure of political leaders to call for self-restraint is “an indication of our enslavement to appetites over which we have no control. This latter condition was defined by the ancients as a condition of servitude, not liberty.” In an entry dated October 2, 2008 called “Democracy in America,” Deneen raises questions about the viability of democracy in a culture that eschews limits and self-control. Citing Tocqueville’s insight that democracy was a collection of mores as much as it was a system of government, he reviews Tocqueville’s warning about how the very success of democracy could lead to its undoing.
Rejecting Rejection
This is the centenary of the birth of novelist John Creasey, who received “743 rejections slips along the way – before his first crime thriller was accepted in 1932,” writes Margaret Murphey. “Creasey wrote 620 novels under more than 20 pseudonyms, selling 80 million books worldwide and writing across many genres, but he is best known for his crime fiction.”
I wonder how many of those rejections were styled as “Um, we don’t publish this sort of thing. Did you even read our publication before submitting?”
Don’t Read Them, He Says
This wag, a TV writer and probably far more wealthy than I am, has a list of books not to bother with, as if he knows something about it. He says The Lord of the Rings isn’t worthy reading and makes for a good screen against unacceptable friends. He hates Joyce’s Ulysses too, so his list isn’t all bad.
Conservative Books and Imagination
In City Journal, Harry Stein writes on the future of conservative books:
Outside the new [conservative-minded] imprints, the New York publishing world clearly remains a liberal stronghold, uncomprehending of, when not outright hostile to, conservative ideas—and authors. Mainstream media outlets that conventional publishers rely on to tout books have just as little enthusiasm for conservative titles. And though George W. Bush has been an incredible boon to conspiracy-mongering authors on the left, he’s done the opposite of good for sales at the new imprints, which have faced a much tougher market of late. In fact, there is much evidence suggesting that the rich vein of Coulter-style liberal-bashing polemics that drove so much of conservative publishing’s healthy sales has largely been mined. Amid all this uncertainty, will the new conservative imprints survive?
Whether particular publishing imprints and companies make it in the long run is unimportant to me. Conservative books will find printers, generally speaking. What I’d like to see is a surge in intellectual vigor in conservatives and Christians alike.
Also in City Journal, Andrew Klavan says some of us don’t imagine things very well.
Now you may say that capturing the imagination isn’t the job of our fighting forces. But this is America, remember: we’re a country of the imagination, a living state of mind. We’re not connected to one another by bloodlines or any depth of native memory. We’re the descendants of an idea that every generation has to learn to hold in its collective consciousness. More than in any other country, it matters in America who we think we are and what we believe we’re doing.
City Journal also has some damning material on Obama advocate and revolutionary, Bill Ayers. Sol Stern writes:
Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.)
Police Expose Nigerian Trafficking Ring
This is evil. Police in Enugu, Nigeria, found a private hospital where infants were being bred for slavery. “Their babies would be sold for as little as 15,000 naira ($127, £72), the police said. It is suspected the babies were to be sold to traffickers who sell children into forced labour or prostitution.”
The article notes that abortion is illegal in Nigeria, which is a good detail to make for American readers, but I wonder if the reporter isn’t suggesting the slavery problem would be solved by killing the children before birth.
Just to the stir the pot (and use a cliche), what’s your theology on infants and children dying. Do they go to heaven?
Artist Kudos
SNL Skit Explains Bailout Aftermath
Michelle Malkin has images and a full transcript of an SNL skit laughing at the mess congress has led us into: Soros/Sandler Bailout Satire
Pelosi: Let’s not forget, Mr. President, that it was the Democrats that first sounded the alarm about the risky mortgage loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were encouraging and that your party resisted all our efforts to rein them in.
Bush: W-w-w-w-ait. Wasn’t it my administration that warned about the problem six years ago? And it was the Democrats that refused to listen?!
Pelosi: What? Who told you that? That’s crazy. It was completely the other way around.
Frank: Actually. This time, he’s sort of right.
…
Herbert Sandler: My wife and I had a company which aggressively marketed subprime mortgages, and then bundled them into securities to sell to banks such as Wachovia. Today, our portfolio is worth almost nothing — though at one point, it was worth close to $19 billion.
Pelosi: My God. I am so sorry. Were you able to sell it for anything.
Herbert Sandler: Yes, for $24 billion. . . . and thank you, Congressman Frank, as well as many Republicans for helping block Congressional oversight of our corrupt activities.
Apparently, the Sandlers are an real couple, not a fabrication, though the numbers appear to be exaggerated.
Don’t Swap the Old for a New Just Like It
Compelling song by Derek Webb: A New Law
Nobels
There’s talk of Nobels at The Literary Saloon. Apparently, former winners made the nominations for this year.