Up in these parts, w’re such slaves to mindless tradition that, year after year, we all rake our leaves in the fall. No imagination.

This year I did it in a big way. I took out the whole tree.

Yes, it’s gone. Today dawned rainy, with scattered thunderstorms, and I thought, “Blast it. The tree guy’ll never take my tree down in weather like this. Somebody could get gaussed by lightning.”

But he called me at work in the morning and told me he’d have it out by noon.

Mark you, this is the low bidder. Lower by about $300 than anybody else I talked to. But he got in there and hustled, and the tree was gone before the clouds cleared. (And yes, he is licensed and insured.)

It’s good to have the Sword of Damocles retracted from my place of residence, believe me. Still, I’ll miss the old tree. For a long time I thought it was an ash. This pleased me, because the ash tree is central to Norse mythology. In the Norse system, the universe itself was a great ash tree, and like mine it was a little sick, with things gnawing at it, requiring care and nutrition.

However, it turns out to have been some odd kind of elm (it never matched any of the pictures I found in tree identification web sites, which is what confused me).

That makes the loss easier to bear. The increased air conditioning costs, due to reduced shade, will hit me in the summer.

I read Brad Thor’s Blowback over the weekend. I don’t think it rates a long review. Enough to say that I like the politics (the president seems to be a fictionalized version of George W. Bush, and his political nemesis is a very nasty female Democratic senator with presidential aspirations, whose initials are H.R.C.). It was fast-moving, like a Roger Moore James Bond movie, and about as substantive. The characters had all the depth of Murine eye drops.

Not bad for recreational reading, when you’re waiting for a plane or something, but I’d prefer conservative fiction with a little more substance.

I’ll be gone for a week starting tomorrow. I’ll check in from Minot and Høstfest if I get a chance. Pictures when I get back, perhaps, so you can share the aesthetic delights of Norwegian-sweater-and-cowboy-hat couture.

Your prayers worked. I found a guy who’ll take the tree down pretty inexpensively, and he plans to do it on Monday.

Thank you.

Tree update: I know how you’ve all been checking this space hourly for my removal situation, so I bow to public pressure and announce that I’ve changed my mind. Or made a decision. Or something.

I’m going to give up on the plan to get the tree removed in a week and a half by a guy who’ll do it cheap, and I’m going to get a professional to do it now.

Because the more I look at the thing, and see how thin the split trunk is, and how many branches are balancing on that trunk, I know I won’t sleep decently until the whole thing is safely on the ground.

Also because if we were to get a big wind, and the thing went over on my roof, I think the insurance company would stiff me (with good reason), knowing I’d let a dangerous tree stand.

It’ll put me way in hock, but I think it’s the responsible choice.



Here’s a couple links for your weekend enjoyment.



“In the beginning was the Word,” in more than one sense. It seems some scholars now believe that the Hebrews invented vowels. Hat tip: Mirabilis.

And Dennis Ingolfsland at The Recliner Commentaries explains (in case you’ve been to college and lost your ability to reason) some major differences between Christian and Muslim Fundamentalism.

If you care to pray for me, pray that I get a cheap bid, and that I can finish the business in time to still get to Minot.

Mowed the lawn tonight. I’d hoped to wait until the branches were cleaned up from my fallen tree, but my branch removing guy still hasn’t shown up yet, and the weekend’s supposed to be rainy, and I’m going away on Tuesday (burglars, don’t take that as a hint. My renter will still be here, and he’s a former Navy Seal who’s always armed).

My current cause for night sweats is the thought of another unusually strong wind before the tree gets removed, so that it falls on my house. And the insurance company will refuse to pay because I knew the tree was dangerous and hadn’t had it removed yet.

Carol Platt Liebau is hosting Hugh Hewitt’s show tonight, and she’s been talking about the declaration of Dr. James Dobson and some other pro-life leaders that they’ll vote for a third party candidate if a spotless pro-lifer isn’t nominated by the Republicans.

I suppose there’ll be some disagreement about this among our readers. But I’ll share my opinion, which I hold strongly. As always, the ideas and opinions in this post do not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of Brandywine Books, its owners or management, or of real persons, living or dead.

I’ve admired and supported Dr. Dobson for many years. I’m grateful for his tireless work for good causes in this country.

But I got a renewal notice for Citizen Magazine today, and I decided to toss it. I don’t want Dr. Dobson to be able to claim me as a supporter at this point in history.

I remember hearing him say, on his radio program years back, that he’d decided that he would never again vote for any candidate who wasn’t solidly pro-life. I admired his passion, but I remember thinking I wasn’t sure that would always be the best policy.

I don’t think I’ll sleep better in an America where Hillary Clinton is president, and the Democrats control both houses of congress, and four brand spanking new loose constructionists sit on the Supreme Court, just because I can tell myself I voted for a righteous candidate.

Compromise isn’t just part of politics. Compromise is politics. If you can’t compromise, if you can’t accept a half a loaf today in the hope of getting more another day, then you shouldn’t become a political player.

This seems to me a doomsday tactic. It’s saying (and one of Carol’s callers said essentially this), “If I can’t have everything the way I want it, I’m happy to see the whole country devastated and the earth sown with salt, in the hope that something better will spring from the holocaust.”

That’s not conservative American principle. That’s what the hippies used to say in the 60s.

Lynn Vincent asks what would be up for grabs “if Hell had a menu.”

I heard a friend on Michael Medved’s show today. Michael had Ann Coulter on as a guest, and one of his callers was a fellow I’ve written about before on this blog (some time back; probably on the old site), calling him “Elmer” (not his real name). Michael recognized his voice, and said, “I know you. You gave me some religious literature when I was in Minneapolis.”

Elmer was a little odd when we were growing up together, and he hasn’t gotten less odd with the years. He’s a Christian now, and heavily involved in end-times prophecy studies. He figures the world will come to an end in a few months, and has maintained that view consistently, in a rolling fashion, for the past decade or so.

Still, for all that, he has the moxy to call a national radio show to try and chat up Ann Coulter.

I mean, if you’re going to be crazy, you might as well have some fun with it. Not that I want to be Elmer, but he seems to have a better time being crazy than I do.

Until the world ends, of course.

I finished reading Randy Wayne White’s Twelve Mile Limit today. Enjoyed it, but his Doc Ford books (I reviewed Shark River a while back) leave me conflicted. There’s elements I like very much and elements I don’t like at all. But compelling, withal.

That’s not a review. But it’ll do to round out this post on a pseudo-literary note.

I’ve wanted to make this kind of art for a long time, but I’d tend toward playing with words as well as books, such as “Not Easily Moved” in Gallery 2 (the eighth selection).

Blue Like Jazz. At least, it will be a movie loosely based on the book.

First off, a link. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has a new website. I imagine we have both “egalitarians” and “complementarians” among our readership, but I’m a complementarian, so I like this organization and its site. Make of it what you will.

Today was a day rich in drama for your humble correspondent. It encompassed in a short span all those stages you’ve come to recognize in my response to crisis: First shock, then base despair, then self-flagellation, then the working out of things, then Never Mind.

First of all, the guy who’d said he’d cut down my tree came to my office and told me he didn’t think he could do it. Too tall; too close to the house. I thanked him, and contemplated the prospect of hiring a professional, and all that would cost me.

But he knew a guy, he said, and he’d ask him to take a look. “Please do,” I answered, large beads of sweat extruding from my furrowed brow.

I began to plan what I’d do when the Guy He Knew said he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do the job. I’d have to find a professional. The professional would either a) say he had to do it this weekend, which would interfere with my plans to go out to Dallas, Wisconsin with the Viking Age Society. Or b) he’d say he couldn’t get to it till next week, which would mean I’d have to be here and wouldn’t be able to go to Minot. Which would mean I’d miss the Sissel concert and my life would be utterly, totally pointless.

Furthermore, the extra money it would cost probably indicated that I ought to give up on Minot anyway. Ragnar is expecting me there to do live combat shows with him, but these things happen.

If things worked out just right, I figured, I’d be able to disappoint pretty much everybody.

Then my guy came back and said his friend had looked at it, and could do it. Only he couldn’t cut the tree down for two weeks. However, my guy said he could clean up the branches on the ground this week.

In other words, it looks like it’ll work out perfectly.

Except that it’ll cost me a little more, but still it’s about half of what the professionals ask.

So how did I handle this test of my faith? About C-, I think. Maybe D+.

I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I worry too much about my emotional responses. The important thing, it occurs to me, is not how I feel, but how I force myself to say, “Praise God. Thy will be done.”

On the other hand, my feelings affect how I deal with other people, and my expressions of faith and peace could be much, much better.

Ah, well. At least I can put it online. “Praise God. Thy will be done.”

I spent the weekend nursing a free-floating sensation of unfulfilled obligations. But it was rainy, so the painting I wanted to do on my basement windows couldn’t be done. I ended up running around a lot, without actually accomplishing much.

On the other hand, I spent almost no money. At this time in my life, that’s a big achievement.

In fact I made a little money. I worked past my fear of the unfamiliar, and offered my first item ever for sale on eBay: an autographed copy of The Year Of the Warrior.

I sold it too, though not entirely because of my skill in composing a listing. The subject of my books came up in comments on Gene Edward Veith’s Cranach blog (of course I didn’t bring it up. That would be bragging, and God would strike me dead). A woman was wondering where to get a copy, and I told her I had one up for auction, so she went over and “bought it now.”

I’ll do this again, but not right away. I’ll be going out of town to the Høstfest in Minot next week, so I’d have trouble servicing any orders I got on stuff I listed just now. But I’ve got cartons of The Year of the Warrior and Blood and Judgment in the basement, part of my divorce settlement from Baen Books. Might as well make something off them.

The guy came to look at my tree today, but I was at work at the time, so I don’t know yet what he thought. I suppose no news is good news. If he thought he couldn’t do it, I imagine he’d have told me right away.

Unless he wouldn’t have.

Read a collection of stories by Jeffrey Archer. Enjoyed them. I’m going to pick up one of his novels (at the library, of course).

Here’s a link to a review at The American Spectator Online (blessed be It). Christopher Orlet reports on Theodore Dalrymple’s new book on drug addiction. The shocking (for our times) premise is that addiction is not nearly as powerful a thing as we’ve been told, and that people who get addicted, in general, simply lack character.

I like Dalrymple.

I bet Rush Limbaugh won’t interview him.

Update: I know the Cranach blog link isn’t working. World Magazine has moved their whole site, and they haven’t condescended to give us a visible further link to Cranach. Meanwhile, Ed Veith is away, so I can’t e-mail him to ask about it.

New improved Update: I realize my timing isn’t very good in my Rush Limbaugh reference above. I don’t listen to Limbaugh myself (he’s not carried by the station I follow), but I like him generally. And I think the current smear campaign being waged against him is contemptible.