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Jun

23

Saturday Readings

Posted By: 'Okie' | 11:34 am — 6/23/2007 | Comments Off See comments below:

Welcome ‘Okie’ readers. Here are some of my favorite bloggers’ writings and tidbits of interest from yesterday and this AM. Enjoy!

Have you ever received a gift that was so incongruous that you were stymied as to why the giver had chosen that particular thing just for you? Did you make your embarrassed thank you and then promptly tossed it, gave it to charity or, mercy sakes alive, re-gifted it to someone you didn’t like all that much? Or, did you receive it hesitantly, but with as much appreciation as possible, and then try like the dickens to figure out just why you had been given such a thing? This is what was on the Anchoress‘ mind yesterday as she muses over the gift that President Bush gave to Pope Benedict earlier this month during his visit to Rome. (Whew — I’ve just paraphrased her liberally here — however she does a far better job expressing those same thoughts!)

It was a walking stick “carved by Roosevelt Wilkerson, a man who lived on the streets of Dallas with his wife until a good friend of George and Laura Bush discovered his craft and began helping him sell the carvings, known as Moses Sticks”. A rather simple, humble gift for a Pontiff, and as usual, Bush is being castigated for incompetent International relations, political faux paux and bearing cheap gifts. B.D.S. lies around every corner these days.

You can go read the case “for” and “against” the stick. To me the story is about much more than whether President Bush has “har-har screwed up again.” It’s about how one receives a thing.

I’ve asked before – how do you receive a good? If someone gives you a gift that they’ve spent a good deal of time selecting for you, even if it is not to your taste, do you accept it and ask for the receipt so you can return it? Or do you accept it and then shove it away in a drawer? Or do you keep it nearby and consider it, use it, and try to figure out just what it was about the gift that made someone select it for you? Sometimes there is some self-discovery in doing that. You learn what you show to other people, for one thing.

How do you receive a “good” in the larger world of politics and religion – even, within that sphere, if you’re not sure a thing is good, but you know the intentions are? Do you ever consider the value of a good intention? Not simply that “the road to hell is paved with them,” but that there is power in intention? God created the whole world through it.

How do you receive things from God – or from “the Universe,” if that is how you prefer to think – is it all “blessing” or all “curse?”

Brilliant questions, Anchoress, as usual, as you can see from this excerpt. She continues on with a lot of answers to those that are just as full of insight, also as usual.

Justin Levene posting at Patterico tells us that we can save some loot here in the granola state if we always order our coffees “to go”. I didn’t know that, but the Mrs. did, (of course she is the tax guru!)

Patterico, his own self, posts a short set of links to a terrifying/shocking/well, at least extremely disturbing mishandling of sensitive security information by the TSA. Don’t miss the comments on this one as the Liberal Avenger performs a mea culpa and gets schooled by “nk”. Sweet!

A Watchers’ Council member, Big Lizards, takes China to task for not learning from our past mistakes and continuing to make harmful goods that endanger us all, not to mention poisoning themselves with massive pollution.

For years, I have heard bits and pieces of news about the terrible pollution and lethal food in China. I heard that the soil of southern China was so contaminated that northern Chinese would not eat any vegetables coming from the South; they called them “poison vegetables.” I even heard that some Chinese started bringing their own cooking oil to restaurants after they discovered the chefs using industrial oil to cook food.

However, not until I started reading Japanese language Chinese blogs few months ago did I realize just how serious the situation has become.

The Chinese managers would send a driver out to get me some MacDonalds or KFC whenever I would have to tour the skate factories in Dong Guang, and I would always politely, but definitely refuse the favor. We always brought with us our own tuna and bottled water from Hong Kong. Didn’t win many friends that way, but didn’t get hepatitis or the creeping crud either!

Another Council member, Laer at Cheat Seeking Missiles has a few thoughts about the Senate Energy Bill from this last week and its call to up the CAFE fuel economy standard for cars, light trucks and SUVs to 35 mpg by 2020.

This isn’t about choice; it’s about government telling us what to buy, what to “like,” and not to worry about the fact that they fully intend to stick us in tiny deathtraps.

The Senate bill includes nothing … NOTHING! … about opening new oil reserves in the U.S. This is not a sensible energy policy; it’s a radical Warmie greenhouse gas doom nightmare forced on the American people.

From the comments made by David Friedman, director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, one has to conclude that Friedman is a total idiot. In industrial design there is a magic element called “unobtanium” that can do just about everything. For the future cars and trucks to “look a lot like they do today, the same size, the same acceleration and the same or even better safety” as Friedman opines, we would need a boatload of that there “unobtanium”, that’s for sure. Too bad it’s such a bitch to get!

Council member Bookworm Room observes that Conservative documentaries like “Indoctrinate U – Our Education, Their Politics” fly completely under the radar of the entertainment industry — or, are they simply ignored on purpose?

In the media world, you can promote Global Warming scenarios, but not counter scenarios. And you can sell films that push a liberal viewpoint, but not a conservative one. You’d think the incredible popularity of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ might have taught the entertainment biz not to underestimate the conservatism of the paying American public. I guess that the real story is that you can never underestimate the ideological stubbornness of the entertainment industry.

That about says it all. BTW — don’t miss your opportunity to see Frank Gaffney’s ABG’ films “Muslims Against Jihad” airing tonight on Fox News. Set your TIVOs folks!

Time for a couple more, and then I gots to go do the Saturday do. First, keep checking in on Michael Yon as he brings us first hand info about Operation Arrowhead Ripper. Yon’s posts are riveting, and you won’t get very much, if any, of this info in your local rag or on the evening news.

And finally, SeeDubYa at Junk Yard Blog brings us this little goodie:

Dogfight in the Amazon

Americans watch as a Brazilian fighter chases a dope smuggler low over the Amazon canopy.

Care to guess if the smuggler makes it? ;-)

Happy Saturday readings!

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