Hyperbole for 1000, Alex

Vanderleun has an excellent end of year piece on on a piece of the continent in my neck of the woods – the Mount of the Holy Cross.  Interesting and maddening how its meaning and impact have diminished over time.

Read the whole piece, but this pretty well sums it up,

President Herbert Hoover finally designated the site the Mountain of the Holy Cross National Monument in 1929. This lasted as long as the Holy Cross on the mountain itself. Over the years both visitation to the Mountain and the right arm of the cross fell off and the Federal designation was revoked in 1950.

Mount of the Holy Cross postcard

…a sinus headache this big.

More posts when I’m semi-conscious…

Vanderleun at American Digest has a great post on what he really wants for Christmas – a computer system that does what it promises.  In addition to his requirements, here’s my add – wireless.  I don’t want a crappy wireless-B/G/N network that drops or freezes in mid download, but a seamless, secure, intuitive environment that finds what I want it to find – other laptops, printers, and every single last file that I want.  I want it to give it to me at 1.21 gigaquad speeds.  And I want wireless power so there’s not a single frakking cord cluttering up the backside of my desk.  Is that too much to ask?  I think not.

While I’m at it, it’s near 2010 and we’re nowhere near going to Jupiter and Europa.  What’s up with that?   And since we’re well into the 21^st century, where are my rocket boots and atomic car?

In fact, it’s preferred.   Light posting for a few days, so have blessed remembrance of the incarnation of the hypostatic union!

Yeah, the country is going to hell in a handbasket.  Congress wants to take over 1/6 of the economy, and what’s left will go the UN and a boatload of third-world nations in global warming reparations.  Is there hope?  You betcha – I heard it at a gas station.  I was gassing up at a decidedly secular station when I heard,

“With the angelic host proclaim:
“Christ is born in Bethlehem”
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

No biggie, it’s Christmas, right?  The folks at the gas station may not have been believers; maybe the boss said to play some Christmas music and they played whatever was handy.   It struck me that no matter how vigorously our culture shakes its collective fists at God, He will be heard.  We can bemoan the sad state of society, with its petty debauchery and vice, or we can rejoice that the King of Glory is come and is in control.

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One.

“Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.”

The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.

Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,

“I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” (Psalm 2:1-6, NIV)

God is king and lord of all that is seen and unseen.  Even at the gas station.

Merry Christmas!

December 7, 1794: At Honolulu the American merchant sloop Lady Washington fired a 13-gun salute to greet the English schooner Jackal as it arrived in port. The Jackal returned the salute — instantly killing the Washington’s captain and several crewmen. One of its cannon loaded with grapeshot had not been properly unloaded.

Actually, there are several versions of what happened.  According to History of the Hawaiian Islands (1847), the event took place on New Years Day, 1795.  Captain Brown of the Jackal, fresh from a victory over the Hawaiian chief Keao, entered the harbor and fired off a self-congratulatory salute.

Another version says that ‘Jackel‘ and the Prince lee Boo had just arrived in triumph from the inter-island war.

At once salutes were exchanged. But, on board Jackel, a charge of round and grape had not been removed from one of the saluting guns. The shot hit Lady Washington with tragic effect, killing Captain Kendrick.

Whatever actually happened, the bottom line is this: the frakkin’ gun is always loaded.

Read more: FirstShowing.

Very cool. Tony Stark takes on a greedy, grasping Congress.  Oh yeah, and Mickey Rourke, too.

Ed Driscoll at Pajamas Media has a great column on the decay of our culture as exemplified by the MTV sleezefest Jersey Shore (and its Youtube predecessor Guido Beach).  Driscoll’s point is that culture has traditionally been defined from the top downward.  The middle and lower classes took cues from ‘their betters’.  In the post-World War II era, that began to change.

He quotes Tom Wolfe on rock & roll:

Rock & roll was a socially radical form of music. Rock & roll demolished the ballroom-dance hegemony of popular music — Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra…And ballroom dancing is one of the support structures of the conventional status system. It’s good manners. Presley, and later the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, demolished the status structure of popular music. When Presley came along, the fact that he was of low-rent origins and had a low-rent sound — a black singer who happened to be a poor white boy from the hills — that was very much part of his importance, musically and socially.

and Jonah Goldberg on the impact today’s culture:

Long before the rise of reality shows, ecumenical niceness* created a moral vacuum. Out-of-wedlock birth was once a great shame; now it’s something of a happy lifestyle choice. The cavalier use of profanity was once crude; now it’s increasingly conversational. Self-discipline was once a virtue; now self-expression is king.

Reality-show culture has thrived in that moral vacuum, accelerating the decay and helping to create a society in which celebrity is the new nobility. One senses that Richard Heene thought — maybe still thinks — that the way to make his kids proud of him was to land a reality show. Paris Hilton, famous for being famous thanks in part to a “reality” sex tape released days before her 2003 reality show The Simple Life, is now a cultural icon of no redeeming value whatsoever.

The question is: Can the rest of us afford to live in a society constantly auditioning to make an ass of itself on TV?

I think that decay – even societal decay – is the natural state of things.  It’s a consequence and symptom of a fallen world.  That said, our actions can speed up or slow down that decay.  There are a number of places in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 28, for instance) that describe the benefits of following God, as well as the negative consequences of rejecting Him.  Turn your back on God, society decays faster; turn to Him, the decay slows.

—–

* According to social scientist Charles Murray, ecumenical niceness holds that harsh judgments of the underclass — or people with underclass values — are forbidden.  A corollary: People with old-fashioned notions of decency are fair game.

Well, duh.  Men tend to prefer bacon to, well, anything.  OnePoll.com polled 4000 Brits and asked them to rank their favorite smells.  Here’s what they found:

The whiff of a newborn was only ranked at number 18 in the poll while bacon was seventh and petrol was 12th.

Top of the list was freshly-baked bread followed by clean sheets and freshly mown grass.  Fish and chips, roast dinner and fresh coffee also made the list as did fresh air after rainfall.

Women picked bread, grass and clean sheets followed by fresh flowers and vanilla as their favourites with vomit, body odour and public toilets the worst smells.

Around the house rubbish bins, wet dogs, cigarettes and smelly feet came top.

It also emerged that nine out of ten women believe a nice scent has the ability to change their mood.

Stephen Weller, Director of Communications at the International Fragrance Association, said: ”Scent has always played an important part in our everyday life – wherever we go, we are surrounded by different smells, some good and some bad.”  Dr. Pamela Dalton, who has a PhD in experimental psychology and trained as a cognitive and sensory psychologist, also commented on the results: ”We may all react differently to any particular scent.

”Smell has the power to revive the past and transport us to a happy time or place or remind us of a special person, evoking feelings of nostalgia and comfort.  The link between scent and memory is very strong, and how we react to different smells is therefore very unique and dependent on who we are as individuals and our past experiences.”

Other things to make the men’s top 20 include lavender, apple and blackberry crumble in the oven and a freshly lit match.  Women’s top 20 also featured vanilla in fifth place, freshly ground coffee in sixth and rainfall in seventh.  Their top ten was completed by chocolate, babies and lavender.  The study also found that 92 per cent of women said smells make them happy.

Memories of happy childhoods were named as the main reason Brits were fond of pleasant smells, followed by ‘feeling at home’ and delicious food.  While women claim certain smells put a smile on their face because they’re homely, or reminds them of someone they love, blokes prefer exciting and invigorating aromas.

And eight out of ten men said smells made them happy.  With nearly half (48 per cent) of blokes admitting to using scent in the home, with it helping a quarter of them relax, wind down or create the right mood.  More than nine in 10 men (94 per cent) even went as far as to say their home smelling nice was important.

The survey found catching a whiff of a partner’s aftershave on a passer-by raises a smile for eight in 10 Brits.  But nearly two thirds wouldn’t dare tell a friend or work colleague they smelt bad.  Yet 54 per cent of blokes WOULD, compared with just three in 10 women.

And Christmas tree pine needles, bonfires and cinnamon emerged as the smells Brits associate with winter.

TOP 20 SMELLS WHICH MAKE BRITS HAPPY

1. Freshly baked bread
2. Clean sheets
3. Freshly mown grass
4. Fresh flowers
5. Freshly ground coffee
6. Fresh air after rain fall
7. Vanilla
8. Chocolate
9. Fish and chips
10. Bacon frying
11. Roast dinner
12. Babies
13. Lemon zest
14. Lavender
15. Petrol
16. Apple and blackberry crumble in the oven
17. A freshly lit match
18. Roses
19. Party poppers
20. Rubber tyres

Matches?  Party poppers?  Gotta love the smell of tyres.

(HT: UK Telegraph)

From an event during Sunday’s Texans/Jaguars game.  I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Poor Tiger...