This will be completely incoherent, but I’ll go ahead and empty my brain into the word processor, and call it a post. I won’t be doing one tomorrow. I’m on my way to Elk Horn, Iowa for Tivoli Fest. Reports and photos will be forthcoming once I’m back. If I get back, of course. You never know with us old guys, especially when we play with swords.

So I’ve got to pack for the trip, as soon as my washing is done. I’ve also got to celebrate my weekly bill-paying ceremony. And load Mrs. Hermanson. And write a list of eight suggested questions for TV and radio interviewers, for my publisher’s publicist. Continue reading Incoherence on the eve of departure →

Procter & Gamble must pay a particular snack food tax in the UK, because it failed to make its case that Pringles is not, in fact, a potato chip. The company said that because Pringles have only 42% potato in them (the rest being flour and fat), they are more like a cake or biscuit and therefore not subject to the tax in question.

I wonder if P&G would have won their case if they had employed a five-year-old to argue it.

In case you missed this, the states with the most freedom are those with low taxes, low government spending, and not too much legal management of private lives. Liberal state governments restrict freedom far more than conservative state governments, according to a study. “The problem is that the cultural values of liberal governments seem on balance to require more regulation of individual behavior than do the cultural values of conservative governments.”

Yes, this is a problem. As I was discussing with the good wife after watching “The Dark Knight” recently, good people rely on each other to behave and be trustworthy. There can be structures for law enforcement and personal defense, but the whole system breaks down once enough people become corrupt in one way or another. Add to that someone willing to force his agenda on everyone, you can have chaos quickly.

So conservatives want everyone to do what’s right, believing the more power concentrated in government, the less positive freedom we all have, and liberals want the heavy hand of government to force everyone to do what’s right, believing government power will always work they way they want it to, never turning on them to take their freedom away. For many years, conservatives have been lousy communicators and in many ways lousy practitioners of justice, liberty, and mercy. Liberals have been lousy visionaries, misunderstanding the base reality that given enough power we will redefine justice, liberty, and mercy.

On a related note, let me say that I’m proud of a man I work with, who told me today of a plan he is working with others to form a non-profit which will work to open opportunities for local minority workers–people who want to work but have few options. The organization will encourage employment from our community, specifically for those who have had many doors closed to them. That’s the way to do it, private citizens helping each other and not relying on the government to force them to do it its way.

Some nights I can’t think what to write. Other nights I have to make a list to be sure I don’t forget anything.

First of all, for those of you interested in Things Norwegian, a new blog has been begun by Bård Titlestad of Saga Publishers. He’s the son of Prof. Torgrim Titlestad, author of Viking Norway, which I reviewed here. The blog is devoted to Norwegian-American issues. Which is perfect timing, as I just declared Norwegian-American culture dead, dead, dead a few days ago.

Well, I could be wrong.



Secondly, thanks to our friend Loren Eaton for his flattering review of The Year of the Warrior over at I Saw Lighting Fall.

In a related matter, a friend over at Facebook told me that new copies of TYOTW are selling for $40 over at Amazon.com. I turned aside to see this marvel, and found that the forty buck copy was the cheap one. Some entrepreneur is offering it at the optimistic price of $104.00. Continue reading Long, disjointed post on many subjects →

Scott Lamb at World Magazine Blog commemorates the 25th anniversary of the death of Francis Schaeffer today.

Sunday is Syttende Mai, the Norwegian Constitution Day holiday. I was sure you’d want to know about that.



I’m thinking about Facebook today. I joined the online social networking community with some dread (anything with the word “social” in it, from “socialism” to “social disease,” scares me), but I’ve been gratified by the number of people interested in being my “friends” on Facebook. Several of them have been students at our Bible school, which is frankly incomprehensible. I’ve never spoken to most of these students, and the ones I have spoken to I’ve usually just told to take their cell phones out of the library. Yet they’re interested, and they join my Facebook group. I can only assume that they’re sadder and lonelier people than I ever dreamed, and I should have been kinder to them. (That’s a JOKE! A JOKE!)

What’s the deal with Facebook groups, anyway? I’ve been involved in forums before. When I was on AOL, I participated in several discussion groups about Norway, Vikings, C. S. Lewis, and the Avengers. We had vibrant (and sometimes nasty) discussions. I’ve been involved with a Viking reenactors’ discussion board, elsewhere from Facebook, for years now. It ebbs and flows, but the posts keep coming, and sometimes it’s hot and heavy.

But Facebook groups just sit there. People join—some have hundreds or thousands of members—but in all the groups I’m involved with, the members seem to feel that they’ve “voted” by joining, and that’s the end of their obligation. One of the most active groups I’ve joined, oddly, is the Avoidant Personality Disorder group, which is populated solely by people pursuing a lifestyle in emulation of Harpo Marx.

I’m one of the most verbal and outgoing members of two or three groups I belong to. That’s just wrong.

Free Chocolate from Mars today and every Friday. Mars is giving away 500,000 coupons for free chocolate at realchocolate.com for those who register.

From the American Spectator Online:

On the other hand, I could come up with hundreds or thousands of homicidal maniacs who were anything but quiet and who seldom kept to themselves. Jesse James was rowdy. Charlie Manson charismatic. Al Capone a celebrity. I remember reading Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Of the two killers in that book, only one (Perry Smith) might be called moody or somewhat introverted. The other, Dick Hickock, was a high-living, woman-loving rambler. Few homicidal maniacs were creepier than John Wayne Gacy, and yet here is how Gacy is described by his biographer Martin Gilman Wolcott: “John Wayne Gacy was never a loner, never someone who kept a low profile and lived a secluded, quiet life.”

About time somebody said it.

An Irishman punked journalists through Wikipedia, not realizing beforehand that many modern journalists don’t verify their sources. Time crunch, no doubt.

If there were no buyers, there would be no sellers and no victims. I’m told that the demand for young girls is increasing, and the buyer is an average American man. This is evil. I’m know I’m being vague, but hard to talk about sex trafficking in any context.