756*

Barrels of ink are being spilled on this, and have been spilled ever since it became apparent that Barry Bonds would break Hank Aaron's Home Run Record. I don't have much to contribute to it except to state my uninterest in the achievement of Bonds. He played longer than Aaron; he used performance enhancers; he is a miserable human being.

Hank Aaron still holds the record in my book, even after his classy, videotaped concession speech. Will Bonds be as classy when A-Rod breaks his record in six or seven years? Bonds is a truly, and supremely gifted ball player. His involvement in the madness of steroids basically destroyed his name and forever cast a shadow over his accomplishments and the game. The real tragedy of the 756, however, is not that the record was broken -- records are meant to fall. The real tragedy is that one of the truly great records in all of sports was broken in a way that doesn't jibe with most people's notions of fair play. As a result, something that should be celebrated has bred further cynicism in the public. We're all a little worse off today, now that Hank Aaron is number two on the all time home run list than we were on 7 August, 2007 at 8:50 PM PDT.

Summer Reading

I've been doing some reading this summer. Here's my list and some thoughts on what I've finished.

The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova
A creepy book about vampires in which the heroine, through flashbacks, reveals her, and her family's, confrontations with Vlad the Impaler. Beautifully written and set in locales all over Europe -- but heavily focused in Romania -- this was a fun read. It's one of those books that's both a page turner and intelligent. Vampires creep me out, so that added a layer of extra fun for me.

The Russian Debutante's Handbook
by Gary Shteyngart
Mrs. Agricola has been telling me for a long time that I need to read this book. I'm glad that I finally took her advice. Laugh-out-loud-funny in parts, Shteyngart skewers mid-90s hipsters, grungesters, the Russian Mafiya and immigrants in Ameriva. His hero, Vladimir Gershkin, is a bumbling nebbish until a crazy misunderstanding in a Miami hotel sends him to the Republic Stolovaya and the city of Prava where he comes up with schemes to enrich the local mobsters, and himself. Like most adventure stories, it ends with our hero living in the 'burbs . . .

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
I've read eight of eleven of McCarthy's published works and list him as one of my all time favorites. I must admit though, that I was put off by the fact that this book was a selection of the Oprah Book Club -- I almost didn't read it, but because I did almost buy it as a hardcover in December, '06 before it received so much "recognition," Mrs. Agricola picked up a copy for me. Unrelentingly grim, as one would expect a tale of the post-apocalyptic world to be, this book also contains the most human relationship I've encountered in a McCarthy book. Very much a writer of biblical prose, and unafraid to probe man's darkest impulses, many of McCarthy's characters are essentially allegorical representations of good, evil, debasement etc. The unnamed father and son in this book are definitely allegorical, but they are also incredibly human, especially in their love for one another and their will to survive. It was an awesome, deeply moving book that ends (and this in no way gives away the ending)in poetry.

Institutional "Confidence"

Here's an interesting excerpt from the Wall Street Journal's "Best of The Web Today" email about a Gallup Poll rating Americans' confidence in American institutions:

*** QUOTE ***

The percentage of Americans with a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress is at 14%, the lowest in Gallup's history of this measure--and the lowest of any of the 16 institutions tested in this year's Confidence in Institutions survey. It is also one of the lowest confidence ratings for any institution tested over the last three decades. . . .

Of the 16 societal institutions tested in Gallup's 2007 update, Americans express the most confidence in the military. They have the least confidence in HMOs and Congress. Americans have much more confidence in "small" business than in "big" business.

*** END QUOTE ***

The survey suggests Americans are generally grumpy; all the institutions surveyed showed a decline in confidence since last year except HMOs and "big business," which held steady at 18% and 14% respectively.

Newspapers, meanwhile, have a confidence rating of 22%. Eat your heart out, Nancy!

-- James Taranto

Pilgrims' Progress

Sunday, we headed to Plymouth to dine with Mrs. Agricola's father -- he lives on Cape Cod and it's mid-way between our plots of land. I hadn't visited Plymouth in perhaps 25 years. What I remember from that trip was the sad little Mayflower II and the even sadder, caged-1620 Plymouth Rock surrounded by flotsam and seaweed.

The Mayflower II seems sadder today, surrounded by fencing so that you have to pay to see her hull. We didn't even see Plymouth Rock . . . what was really surprising in Plymouth however, were the people. At the risk of sounding like a snob (which, basically I am, I suppose) the visitors to Plymouth on Fathers' Day were somewhat . . . louche. There were lots of mullets, bad tattoos -- some acquired in prison -- lots of smoking 120 Virginia Slims and Marlboro Reds as well tons of Harleys.

The Harley riders kept cruising up and down the street, back and forth, for much of the afternoon. It reminded me of what goes in other seaside towns along the coast of Massachusetts and New Hampshire -- especially at Revere, Nantasket, Salisbury and Hampton Beaches. I'm not sure what it is about seaside towns like these that attracts this social element and what compels them to cruise the strip, though I have a theory. Three of these four towns are near old, yet still operating, nuclear reactors -- Seabrook in NH, and Pilgrim in Plymouth. Perhaps there is something in the air that attracts these people. I am all for nuclear power, but may have to reconsider my support of it until I can do some more research into the social element that congregates in towns near the reactors.

Miles Standish, John Smith and the other Pilgrims would hardly recognize Plymouth today. When you go to Revere, as we did Friday with my father, you expect the seediness so you're ready for it. The seediness of Plymouth, however, shocked me -- though I'm not sure why, tourist destinations always have a less than lovely underside when you scratch the surface. Be that as it may, we'll leave the seaside strip in Plymouth to the inked, mulleted and smokey masses.

Peggy Noonan on "The Sopranos"

Peggy Noonan has a great piece in The Wall Street Journal this morning about "The Sopranos." That Peggy Noonan watches Tony, Carm and all the other paisans surprises me, a bit. She is one of the best writers out there today, and writes with such tremendous grace, intelligence and elegance that I find it somewhat jarring that she sits there on Sunday nights and watches the Brutes of Jersey, just like I do. That she writes about the show with such spot-on insight is not at all surprising. I read her observations and wish I could even make half of them. She's terrific. My favorite line in the piece is this classic:

. . . everyone's a gangster as long as he can find a gang. Those who don't are freelancers.

I was a freelancer for a long time, perhaps that's why this line resonates with me so much. But, more so, it resonates because we all want to be a part of a gang. I have long thought that the Sopranos masterfully tapped into that sense of loss and disconnection that is so prevalent in our world today and that is a central reality of the modern American Experience. In essence, this blog, and maybe all blogs, is about this grappling.

Chronicling the mundane events of life, the seasonal changes, the work that goes into maintaining a home, a piece of property and ultimately a family and sharing it with the world is a way to contextualize and understand our world as it it exists, in the here and now. This is another strength of the Sopranos. Tony lives in a world which is a sub-world of the one most suburbanites occupy. Despite the anarchy of infidelity, murder and greed that fill it, Tony's world -- at least the one in which he was raised as the son of a boss, and which he struggles to maintain -- is governed by rules.

These rules, relics of a collective past are being eroded at every turn and he has lost his moorings. At many points throughout the run of the show the characters talk of the rules, of being made, of doing time to legitimize their stature. Just this year Michael, before his murder, spoke of Ommerta -- which he violates with "Cleaver;" and, Phil Leotardo said they "make guys without the blood and the sword and the cross." As a viewer I often got the feeling that the characters were pretending to be gangsters, and modeled themselves on TV gangsters. Somewhere, the transfer of the knowledge of what made a gangster was ruptured. Most likely this was caused by depictions of the Mafia on TV and in movies -- both of which serve as peripheral, silent characters throughout the run of the show. Just as media transforms and distorts the relationships within a more "traditional" family so it did within Tony's crew.

He, like us, is struggling with this world in which not much seems to make sense, in which our foundations are assaulted at every step by the various forces that wish to topple the traditional edifice in which most of us were raised. Tony is us, without morals, without scruples and with blood on our hands. His struggles with the modern world reflect our own.

Capitalist Workers of The World

Now that the socialists have had their little day of marching, chanting of outmoded slogans and banner waving we hope that they had fun. Unlike them, we observed May Day by working and being thankful for the opportunity. Socialism is a lovely idea until one realizes that it's not.

We are human. We have specific needs, wants and desires. We want to take care of those things for ourselves -- not have that gratification tied into some collectivist whole. The socialistic idea that it takes a village is bunkum. If we're enaged in a collectivist effort, let's face it we're going to let someone do more than we do and still reap the benefits -- we're human and we all try to find slack. Except, in the collectivist system that slack-seeking-nature gets multiplied a thousand fold until slack seeking becomes the modus operandi and nothing gets done -- crops aren't harvested (they're not even sown), children don't get raised etc. etc.

What the village needs is a bunch of hungry, aggressive people who are looking to support themselves and their families and realize there is no shame in that drive. That drive to look out for oneself and one's own has ancillary benefits to the larger community whether the socialistic utopians want to admit it. Our system is not always pretty, it's not always kind, but it's the best because it affords success within parameters defined by the individual. We invite the socialists to join our movement, the movement of Capitalist Workers -- striving for betterment of ourselves and the world through personal reponsibility and self-sufficiency.

Following-up a Couple of Posts

We've written a couple of posts recently about public service and taxation at the local level.

We found a great link over on Newmark's Door to an article in City Journal by Theodore Dalrymple that chronicles the degradation of the British system of public service. It rings true for us, and like Dalrymple we think it bespeaks a larger issue in society at large.

Newmark also pointed us to a terrific article by Jack Kelly in the Pittsburgh Post & Gazette about 300 that is definitely worth a read.

Hilllary, Barack & 1984

This morning's Wonder Land column by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal turned us onto this video. After reading his typically, on-target observations we wandered over to YouTube to check things out for ourselves.

A very well executed play on Mac's seminal "1984" commercial we think that it nicely captures what Hillary is all about -- actually, what the Democrat Party is all about as they seek to take care of us, the naked savages in the wilderness. That it's produced by someone connected to the Obama campaign -- Phil de Vellis -- makes us laugh. We are still 10 months from the primaries and 18 from the general election and the aspirants on the Democrat side are already bloodying themselves.

Previously, we posted some comments on how organizations are losing control of their brands -- a talk we heard at an advertising symposium -- and they need to let it happen, there is no fighting it. This latest dust-up strikes us as the ultimate inside-outside-job of late. A "political pro" (Henninger's description) uses a grass-roots tool (YouTube)to lambaste a major brand (Hillary), all the while being an operative for another major brand (Obama) and, at least for a bit, making it appear as if it was the work of some Obama supporters.

The next ten months should be fascinating to watch. Republicans, and conservatives, should just sit back and watch the Democrats shred each other in their effort to achieve their ultimate goal -- power.

With It, Or On It

We've not yet seen "300" and may not -- it's hard enough to land baby-sitting, and when we do we typically use it to go to dinner, not the movies. We have, however, been thinking about this film, reading about it, browsed the graphic novel upon which it is based while visiting a bookstore, and watched a History Channel show about the battle of Thermopylae. We found a link to an interesting review of the film at The Weekly Standard while browsing Newmark's Door.

The reviewer, John Podhoretz, makes an interesting point about how the film is resonating with audiences. In its first two weeks in general release "300" has netted $100MM. As Podhoretz notes there are no stars involved, either in front of, or behind, the camera. The film does have striking visuals, and tells an incredible story of duty, honor, courage and sacrifice in the face of impossible odds.

Podhoretz writes:

300 is nothing more than a comic book rendering of that tale--quite literally, as it's slavishly faithful to a 1999 comic book by Frank Miller, whose violent imagery and hardboiled storytelling have now been immortalized in two successful Hollywood films (the other being Sin City). Despite the vulgarity and overheated solemnity of its approach, 300 does tell the Thermopylae story without a trace of irony. It depicts Sparta and the Spartans in all their proud, martial, vicious, nasty, unsentimental, and egalitarian glory. Director/co-writer Zack Snyder offers not even a moment of doubt that the Spartans are the good guys--believers in human freedom who oppose the Persians because they demand nothing but submission to a false god-king.

I don't think this movie has a single idea about the nature of cultural conflict, the meaning of martial valor, or anything else. But here's the thing: If you choose to tell the story of Thermopylae, you cannot escape the fact that you are choosing to tell a story of Western civilization taking a stand against rampaging barbarians from the East. And it's precisely this aspect of 300--as well as its entirely unapologetic celebration of war at its most insanely bloodthirsty--that offers the only coherent explanation for its galvanizing effect on audiences.

Kyle Smith, writing in the New York Post, points out that people seeking to draw parallels between the action onscreen and the war in Iraq or the war on terror are looking in the wrong place, since 300 hews close to Miller's 1999 comic book. That is certainly true. But while Miller foresaw no parallel, the audience seeing 300 in the year 2007 is responding viscerally to a story of a clash of civilizations that takes the side of the West against the East.

We've always been intrigued by the battle of Thermopylae. Though, and despite priding ourselves on our knowledge of history we never realized (embarrassingly) that the Greeks lost. We have, however, always understood the subtext of the battle, and have always viewed it through the lens of West versus East -- "a clash of civilizations." What the History Channel show imparted to us was that the act of Spartan sacrifice was born in and helped to foster the idea of Nation. So, despite defeat in the pass of Thermopylae and the subsequent burning of Athens (payback for the Greek sack of Sardis a century before) the Greeks rallied, as a nation, to drive the Persians from the Peloponnese. What ensued was the flourishing of the culture upon which Western Culture rests -- despite politically-correct efforts to deny this. Had this idea of nation not taken root when it did, and had the Persians remained in Greece we would live in a much different world than we do today.

The elites in our government, media-entertainment industry and educational establishment no doubt look upon such thoughts as those of a simpleton -- one who fails to see nuance. Thankfully, unlike those who see only gray in our current clash of civilizations, 300 Spartans (and 1,000 never-mentioned-Thesbians) saw things in black and white, stood their ground and fought for an ideal embodied in a national culture and a way of life. Would that such stalwartness existed amongst our "best and brightest."

Perhaps, some training in a Spartan agoge -- where Spartan boys between the ages of 7 and 19 learned to fight, steal, evade, kill and survive in combat for the good of society -- would change that. Before departing for war, as they handed them their shields, Spartan mothers would tell their sons, : "Return with with it, or on it." Collectively, as a nation, we carry our shield in some nasty parts of the world, in defense of the greatest way of life in the history of mankind. Will we return from these endeavors with our shield in hand, or will we be carried home on it? There is no return without our shield, that is not an option.