Victor Davis Hanson's Dream

He dreamt that the British Marines fought back, but:

And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.

Would that his dream would come true.

Alum

Are you picking because I haven't graduated?

Re: The dirty 30

I read it and I'll report that I read 160 pages of Moby Dick. Literally nothing else. OK, a little Bible, very little Shakespeare, maybe parts of the US documents. Nothing else. There. Now you know the vastness of my ignorance.

Or do I?


*Scooter: "alum": "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Dennis Miller Update

He does seem to be getting guests including Rudy, Barone, Thomas Friedman, VDH and today Jeb Bush. List of audio files available here.

Hewitt's 30 Must Reads

Hugh Hewitt in his Wednesday third hour had a discussion on the 30 books everyone should read:

And so I conspired with David Allen White, professor extraordinaire at the United States Naval Academy, where he’s been teaching Shakespeare and other matters to the mid-shipmen for more than a quarter century, and John Mark Reynolds, professor of philosophy at Biola University, and the head of the Torrey Honors program there, to put together a reading list, and it’s the top 30 books that every one of you ought to have read, and certainly freshmen and sophomores ought to have read.

The full transcript is here and the audio here. It's embarrassing how few I've read but I bet confidently that I'm the only SSJ alum who's read Boethius (just a treatise on the Trinity, not the work discussed on HH, The Consolation of Philosophy).

First commie in space

Google celebrates. Nice.

Re: Mobil Pegasus

Sorry, LJ, but I just love that old building. I could see the Proud Winged Horse from my boyhood home (if I stood on the fence).

Re: Mobil Pegasus

I am respectfully requesting a moratorium on anything related to 1) Mobil 2) Pegasus 3) Exxon 4) ExxonMobil for reasons that I don't think need to be rehashed.

I'm still rather bitter.

Mobil Pegasus

A Dallas icon if there was one, the Mobil Horse sits atop the Magnolia Hotel, site of the old Magnolia Oil Company, which became Mobil. The horse was erected in 1934, on the 29 story building, which when it was built in 1922, was the tallest building west of the Mississippi.

RE: Jenny Agutter

Ok, now that I am able to post, I’ll try these again:

The "Zales" Building.

And don't forget the Fort Worth Watergardens.

I'm trying to figure out how to post some pics of the REAL Mobil Building with my beloved Red Pegasus. Great building.

RE: Jenny Agutter

When the Mobil/Zales Complex was built in the 70s, it was considered "cutting edge."

Re: Jenny Agutter

I read Scooters comment about the movie being filmed at the Zale's Building in Dallas. That building (a complex actually) was sold to Mobil and was in fact where I worked when I transferred up here after the merger. The Mobil folks liked to talk about that movie being filmed there. EM still owns the property and has been trying to sell it for many years - so far no takers. I've never seen "Logan's Run" - I guess need to just to see if I can recognize anything. The whole place just looked like buildings to me - nothing "futuristic".

Vonnegut

If I could draw a picture that might remind you of a spider or might remind you of something else I might do it right here. And so it goes.

Update on Tito's Update

From an April 9, 2007, press release: "Expansion is in the plans, and despite rumors, Beveridge says he has no plans to cash in on his growing success."

Jenny Agutter

Just because. From Flea.

Re: Damascus Nancy

Andrew C. McCarthy at NRO chimes in on Scooter's thoughts about Damascus Nancy, and goes a great deal beyond my analysis of the violation of the Logan Act:

It is settled beyond peradventure that the authority of the United States over the conduct of foreign relations rests exclusively with the executive branch. As John Marshall, later to become the nation’s most important Chief Justice, famously observed, “The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external affairs, and its sole representative with foreign nations.… The [executive] department is entrusted with the whole foreign intercourse of the nation.” In 1936, the Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged in its Curtiss-Wright Export decision, the “delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations[.]”

I agree with McCarthy that this is about teaching and not prosecuting; why prosecute politics? This is a very "teachable" moment but moments are fleeting.

Another English Speaking Peoples' Nugget

"'While this ugly and irritating business of the [First World] War Debt remains in suspense it is a real barrier to Anglo-American friendship,' wrote Churchill in May 1938 [emph. added], yet the debt and its interest was not finally paid off until the end of the year 2005 [emph. added]. The United States is rarely commended for her patience over this; but deserves to be."

Quite the understatement by Master Roberts.