Open thread 12/16/23
On my recent travels out west, I saw many sights in many many places. This is one you probably recognize:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
On my recent travels out west, I saw many sights in many many places. This is one you probably recognize:
The lone cypress
hmm
https://twitter.com/JeffClarkUS/status/1735775673011098078
My favorites coastline area in the US. From that cypress tree on down through Big Sur….just beautiful.
I have never found a lovelier place. Now, if I could only afford to live on 17 mile drive.
Actually, my family had two great years in Monterey, as the Navy tried to finish my education at their wonderful school there. The whole area was lovely and peaceful in those days. A good deal more crowded now. Hard to leave.
Lived at the coast in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties for 35 years. I have fond memories of riding a motorcycle up Pacific Coast Hwy to Monterey to just have breakfast some Sunday mornings. In those days, motorcycles weren’t allowed on 17 Mile Drive.
It’s sad what the once Golden State has become. Leaving was easy.
My maternal grandmother, widowed in her early 40s, built a house just up the hill from there in 1952. I spent summers with her and my cousins, who lived one block off 17 mile drive in Pebble Beach. Those days were heavenly. I returned to Carmel with my youngest daughter about 30 years ago and drove by Gamma’s house. It had been acquired by the city and was an information center, so we were able to walk through it. Smaller than I remembered, but still a great house in a great location.
Yeah, get see that cypress every few years when they hold the US Open there.
In the spirit of “in for a dime, in for a dollar” the Democrats race from metaphorical buggery in the Halls of Congress to actual buggery in the Halls of Congress! Great job, Democrats! *cough”
Nuttin’ says “congress” like a Democrat makin’ congress!
Ever closer to Judenrein:
Harvard Aims to Reduce Jews to 1-2% of Student Population
It’s a good thing, but not in the way intended. Reminds me of my mother’s account of when Jewish children and teachers were expelled from Vienna’s public education system and moved to separate Jewish schools. With Rothschild funding, the plan inadvertently (and briefly) created the most elite schools in Europe.
My wife & I rented a house in Carmel proper for about 5 years in the 90’s. We used to walk everywhere in town with our dog including the beaches. The good old days. You know you’re old when…
For the more ambitious site seers, there is a docent’s tour of the Point Sur Lighthouse. Magnificent views from the top.
Point Sur from a distance:
From the top looking south:
The other good thing I remember from visiting California as a boy in the 60s was no mosquitoes. Is that still true?
Lived and went to school there, worked as well. New Monterey, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel, and last place I lived was Big Sur, first house north of Bixby Bridge. Was a caretaker for Allen Funt, whose house was on the point by the bridge.
That was in late 70’s. Was beautiful, quiet, and a blast then.
It’s a nice little spot. Are those wires or lines there meant to hold up the tree?
I fear I’m poaching neo’s territory, but here’s a video I found today of Maya Plisetskaya dancing her signature role, The Dying Swan, at age 61.
–“Maya Plisetskaya, age 61, dances Dying Swan”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luz5g-doa34
Here she is in her prime at 27 on the Ed Sullivan Show.
–“Prima Ballerina Assoluta, Maya Plisetskaya, The Dying Swan”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNhjS7_EzbY
A goddess.
Some weekends a friend and I would drive from San Francisco down to Big Sur and have lattes at Nepenthe.
–“Eats @ Nepenthe – Big Sur, CA”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UGsUn-x9o
Glory days!
…last place I lived was Big Sur, first house north of Bixby Bridge. Was a caretaker for Allen Funt, whose house was on the point by the bridge.
jim:
We are not worthy!
Here’s one of Death Cab for Cutie’s best songs. The songwriter, Ben Gibbard, idolized Jack Kerouac and made a pilgrimage to the Big Sur cabin Lawrence Ferlinghetti lent Kerouac so Kerouac could, hopefully, put his life back together. Didn’t work out that way.
_______________________________
I descended a dusty, gravel ridge beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge
Until I eventually arrived at the place where your soul had died
And barefoot in the shallow creek I grabbed some stones from underneath
And waited for you to speak to me
But in the silence it became so very clear that you had long ago disappeared
And I cursed myself for being surprised that this didn’t play like it did in my mind
All the way from San Francisco as I chased the end of your road
‘Cause I’ve still got miles to go
–“Death Cab For Cutie – Bixby Canyon Bridge”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coC1rDgP9hU
A touch belated, here’s a birthday thank you to the great L. van Beethoven with an Alfred Brendel performance of Beethoven’s 5 variations on “Rule Brittania”: https://youtu.be/eHvfkgvRaTc?si=l1jVx7LJUSra9ttM
Sunday Open Thread: Russian War on Ukraine:
NATO Training and Lessons from the War in Ukraine – Interview with General Ben Hodges (Ret.) -Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9CBdzpZEmw
Sorry but it’s not Tucker Carlson or Col. MacGreagor.
Neo, you have written about abortion occasionally. The Democrats have used it to great effect to increase their turnout in recent elections. What do you think of Kellyanne Conway’s strategy?
“Strategists and operatives from both parties argue the issue has driven more voter turnout for Democrats in state and local elections across the country, evidenced by better margins for the Democratic position in those initiatives and other races.
“Conway says such ballot initiatives haven’t gone in Republicans’ favor because the left has pushed such measures under the guise of “reproductive freedom for all,” combined with the lack of exceptions for rape, incest and protecting the life of the mother in efforts to limit, or ban, abortion.
“To speak with conviction and compassion, to reflect consensus, to move hearts and minds, means that if you want to discuss a 15-week national minimum standard, then you are reflecting consensus,” she said, citing statistics that show a strong majority of Americans fall within the range that there should be no abortion at all and no abortions past 15 weeks.
“When you do that, you get up to 71% of America, and that reflects consensus. But it also shows conviction and compassion, because in 15 weeks, a woman knows she’s pregnant and the baby can feel pain,” she added.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-trump-adviser-kellyanne-conway-leads-charge-to-overhaul-gop-abortion-strategy-end-dems-2024-advantage/ar-AA1lCwmJ
In kansas it was merely a restatement of dobbs also much innuendo same in ahia the prolife forces were seriously underfunded
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-super-pac-never-back-down-jeff-roe-top-strategist-rcna130126
Bob Wilson:
I think she is correct – that is, if I understand what she’s saying. It’s somewhat unclear from that article, but I think she means that Republicans should emphasize access to birth control plus abortion with 15-week limits as well as exceptions for rape, incest, to save the life of the mother, and I would add when a fetus has a fatal birth defect incompatible with life after birth.
In his commentary Mutants Among Us, Daniel Greenfield charts the mutational march toward a suicidal woke culture.
Every generation in the last 60 years has grown up with less of a sense of who it is than the previous one. The intangible sense of being an American that once came from boundless frontiers, a work ethic, a sense of fair play and meritocracy was replaced by cultural programming distributed by daily newspapers, big publishing houses and movie theaters, then television networks and colleges, and finally a massive chaotic stream of social media sewage.
Sewage in/sewage out you might say.
On Ms. Conway’s strategy; clearly a knowledgeable male can make the same pro-life arguments as a women, but not with the same credibility – especially if that woman already is a mother with two children.
But I hear almost nothing from the pro-life side (male or female) addressing the core disconnect about life – when does it begin? whose body and how many bodies [or persons!] are a pregnant woman carrying around? The scientific fact that genetically there is no point after contraception that adds any more “humanity” to the fetus than from whence it started. Abortion as an after the fact/failed contraceptive convenience is an abhorrent moral posture.
Politically someone may have to say “Ideally I am for no abortions (with selected valid exceptions), but for practical political purposes I will accept half a loaf of 15 weeks, or 12 weeks, etc. until the society can be convinced and persuaded to the errors of the pro-abortion Leftist and Planned Parenthood position.” But even that compromise position seems to get too little proclamation. Or I am not reading the right sources??
But we can all thank our mothers that she did not get an abortion.
And if you believe in God, you can thank Him that she did not have a miscarriage.
However, most of us have said or done something dumb enough to present the possibility that we were dropped on our heads shortly after birth.
Still on the AI front…
Word is many people are going to lose their jobs. The people who don’t will be those who are already using AI.
It’s like the old joke about two guys in the woods about to be eaten by a bear. One of them realizes he only has to outrun his companion…
Pass the word on to those you know in the work force.