Visual Thinking and Occasional Odds and Ends

Two of our founders with their true thoughts translated into  modern  idioms. Did we worry too much about tyranny and too little about effective government?   Did our fear of tyranny cause us to create a government doomed to failure?  I believe the answer is yes.   When we learn about our Revolution in school, the figure of George III looms as a tyrant in the background.  But he was not a tyrant.  He presided over a constitutional monarchy that ruled over a people who were among the freest in Europe.  Only the Dutch were more free.   By the second decade of the 19th century as the US population moved west, it was already clear that we needed to build networks of post roads and canals to allow commerce to flourish.  But the Democratic Republicans led by Jefferson opposed federal funding for internal improvements and in 1815 or so when the idea for a canal from New York to Ohio nearly received federal funding, the funding bill was vetoed by the president.  New

The Picture shows the Great Wall of China.  Like the great wall, our border wall will fail.   Millions of people come to the US each year, perhaps as many as 100 million.  Among them are birth tourists (mainly from China and Korea) regular tourists, businessmen and students.  They arrive at US airports, or drive over crossing points where their passports and travel documents are checked.  They also come by train (over the Canadian border) and even by boat.  None of these people came over the desert from Mexico.   The Boston bombers were legal immigrants, as were the September 11 terrorists.  So were the couple who did the shooting in San Bernardino, California.   But as much as the media present foreign born tourists as a threat, they are no match for the US born terrorists, usually Christian, some even veterans, who commit all manner of acts of terror from the Oklahoma bombing to shooting up churches to the recent shooting of a synagogue in Pittsburgh.   Then the

This is about a small miracle.   No fireworks or obvious magic; still, it showed God’s favor.   It happened yesterday, Christmas Eve (day) in the Rockaway Shop Rite. Like many husbands, I was engaged in yet one more shopping trip to get one more thing for our Christmas Dinner.  I have been doing this on and off since last Thursday, shopping at the Costco and two local Shop Rites.  My wife was engaged in getting the house ready, baking cookies and making preparations for the Christmas Dinner.  I helped too, but my tolerance for disorder makes my work useless.  Monta would need to clean up after my cleaning.  So I do more of the shopping than anything else.   The search for meat was over.  After reading the recipe we had two choices for beef; after a bit of Googling, we settled on a top-round - supposedly more tender than a shoulder.  On Friday, I checked out the meat case to see where the top-rounds were.   With that done, we needed to see how long a roast could stay

On Christmas Eve in 1968, the crew of the Apollo 8 were asked to deliver a message to the Earth during a TV broadcast on Christmas Eve. Originally their mission was to be a test of the command module as they travelled in an elliptical orbit around Earth.  But because of the concern that the USSR would be the first to fly around the moon, the flight plan was changed so that Apollo 8 would leave Earth’s gravity and attain orbit around the moon.   Asked to say something, they had no formal guidance.  With help from a  reporter, and even more, the reporter’s wife, family and they chose a simple text from the Bible.  With this simple test, it was clear that all of mankind was included in what was an American achievement.  One can only imagine what might have come form different men - we might have heard gloating and boasting (sound like our president?) but the there, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders were dedicated to selfless service.  The text went like th

Are you allowed to ask?  (She looks like a man in drag.  Wide shoulders, thick neck, really not ones idea of female beauty.) He/she is a fading celebrity who found one last surprise to keep her act going.  And it is an act.  She started as a male Olympian, moved on to films and TV, ended us with the Kardashians and then became a gal.  She was even praised for her “glamour.”  Can we say that if glamour has any meaning at all, Caitlyn Jenner is a parody? So what?   Well we are in a period of time when ordinary folks are expected to accept a political party’s catechism or shut up.  This is not a good way to win voters.  Both parties do this, but Republicans ask so little of voters that they are hurt far less.  Democrats on the other hand are an alliance of disparate interest groups and each one has a series of talking points that they enforce by having their spokesmen go on TV as soon as someone says something that they don’t like.  Worse than that is how academia has a h

If the picture above does not make you cringe then perhaps you are Jon McNaughton's audience.   But to this trained painter, the image looks like the worst of American realism.  It is not realistic at all.  There is no sea on earth that looks like this.  The image fits into what might be called the School of Thomas Kinkade - so trite as to be embarrassing.   I love realistic paintings.  The western tradition of realism is what I learned and is at the heart and soul of what I still attempt when I do paint.  The following is a Maine seascape by Winslow Homer, who, unlike this son of Utah, really knew the sea.  If you cannot see the difference in quality of presentation, then (again) you are probably Jon's audience.   Oh - no I won't try to tell you why one is good and the other is not.  That is not how you do it.  If I was with you, I might point my finger at a specific area in Homer's work and discuss it compared to an area in McNaughton's piece - bu