For Casa Az

Visitors from the Park

 

Reading roundup

Watson, Burton trans. Four Huts, Asian writings on the simple life. Two thumbs up

Pine, Red ed. The Clouds Should Know Me by Now. Two thumbs up

Han-Shan (Burtson Waston, trans.) Cold Mountain. Two thumbs up

E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Golden Pot. Two thumbs up

Joris-Karl Huysman, La Bas.  One thumb up

Ku, Pan (Burton Watson, trans.), Courtier and Commoner.  Two thumbs up

Taine, Hippolyte (J. Durand, trans.), Ideal in Art. Two thumbs up

Taine, Hippolyte (J. Durand, trans.) The Philosophy of Art. One thumb up.

Xenophon, Memorabilia.  Two thumbs up

Xenophon, Oeconomicus. Two thumbs up

For more reading list information, select “books” under the category option.

The rest of November and the month of December promise to be interesting reading months.  I’m just starting into a collection of works by William James and another selection of works by Xenophon.  The readings in Asian culture and literature continue too.

 

Telemann Trio for recorder, violin and bc

I usually don’t post back to back music postings but this trio is lovely and I wanted to share my find.  YouTube is a treasure trove.

 

Telemann’s Concerto No. 6

 

Praise for National Review Online

National Review Online has published a short work by Peter Wehner about Ayn Rand that is worth reading, although it is several paragraphs too short.  One hopes NRO reproduces and publishes other sober comments about Ayn Rand on their site,  including republishing Mr. Chamber’s 1957 Review of Atlas Shrugged.  Hopefully, readers of NRO (and this blog) will read Rand’s works and draw innumerable lessons from them, including the one important lesson, that Ayn Rand’s underlying philosophy is unsalvageable and monstrous.

While Ms. Rand’s novels are often a fun read (Anthem is a well written and fairly short work), and should spark some serious reflection and thought on the part of her readers, the ideology of Ms. Rand was ugly, ruthless, cruel and it was an ideology she felt should be the rule book of society as well as Wall Street (her idol).  She was deeply wrong.

“We shall execute the whole litany” said regicide Vladimir L*nin as he plunged Russia and other nations into a decades long bloodbath — a nightmare that lasted for decades after he was himself laid out as a mummy on display.  Rand was just as sanguinary, just as dedicated a revolutionary and she too is wrongly venerated by the misguided.

Ms. Rand’s philosophy is one of personal satiation — gluttony in all its manifestations and taken to extremes.  It is no less hateful of dissenters, no less deadly to those who can not or will not partake of the bitter droughts of carnality and cruelty for the sake of the individual’s revels as ends in themselves.  She tolerated deviation from her beliefs no more than the firing parties of the Reds or their close cousins the fascists.  Ms. Rand was no advocate of individual rights, no humanist, but an hysterical, sadistic, craven hissing harpy demanding cruelty towards the weak.

Just as the godless Bolshevik allowed of no higher authority than the State which was in reality far removed from the worker, so Rand did too advocate a godless society in which the strong triumphed and those who could not were at best contemned but utilized.  Rand brooked no discussion of accountability to a source of authority, morality or ethic higher than herself — the author of her own canon of scripture and sutras.

Yes, I am well aware of the justifiable fears of a theocracy doing horrible harm to us all.  Yes, I too am aware of what happens when religion and politics mix and no one is more willing than I to point out the corruption and hypocrisy of even my own denomination — one all too willing to play the role of humble civil servant to the detriment of Christianity and Government.  The point is that Marxism, Fascism and Objectivism all see man as the measure of all things, and the sole purpose of all that exists.  To these ideologies the universe exists to be made subject to the mightiest of humans.  Whomever or whatever doesn’t comply or can’t serve satisfactorily is subject to annihilation, for Rand’s man, and the Soviet and Nationalist States are accountable to no one.  Right and wrong in Rand’s system are not based upon any criteria of appropriateness such as Chuang Tzu or any other philosopher would think valid, no concept of universal love as espoused by the much too neglected Mo Tzu, but subject strictly to the base desires of man the hungry tyrant.

Ms. Rand was a seductive writer.  She strikes a chord even today with Western men and women who rightly equate their economic prosperity with individual rights and a generally capitalist and market based system.  She almost makes sense to advocates of limited government who can point to Washington’s red tape and profligate spending as real enough problems.  Ms. Rand almost sounds not-shrill, not wrong, not evil (yes, I use this word in a sense that conveys a sense of sin, mortal sin, damnation, hell, perdition, eternal suffering, the devil. I use it without any concern for the delicate feelings of sensitive secularists), but ultimately she was no defender of individual rights and liberties.

She may have been initially, but later was no defender of capitalism and free markets, but an unholy herald for those who would exploit and rape markets, companies, even whole nations.  She is a siren luring the naive onto the rocks of a cruel type of hedonism that would make husband leave wife, wife leave husband, families leave behind their elderly and infirm, abandon handicapped children, walk away from siblings and regard friendship, so important and cherished by Socrates (check out  Xenophon’s Memorabilia), as an end to personal means (money, sex, power over others) and nothing else.

Interview with Mike Wallace Part 1

Interview with Mike Wallace Part 2

Interview with Mike Wallace Part 3

This hedonism of Ms. Rand is not of the non-Deontological system of realizing such pleasures as espoused by that great man of uprightness and morals, Epicurus.  The pleasures and joys of her philosophy are the very vices Epicurus loathed, and urged his followers to eschew.  Lucretius made poesy reviling rude and rustic superstitions of revealed  religion, he exhorted his readers to embrace reason, moderation, and piety little pleasing to the ears of Stoics or  Christians, but a piety that demanded sober living in a cosmos not intended for self destructiveness.  No, Ayn Rand’s ideology is as repulsive to the believing Epicurean as it is to the Orthodox Christian, the Platonist or the Stoic.

In 1933 the Soviet thug and dictator Joseph St*lin decided to solve the problem of dissent and resistance in Ukraine by creating a famine and starving some seven million people to death.  There are a dwindling few survivors of the horrors.  For some reason, one gets the impression that Ms. Rand created a philosophy that would have willingly obliged the strong and mighty individual hero to do something similar, if needed, to achieve an extreme manifestation of  individuality similar to that achieved by the USSR’s “Man of Steel.”  Though she did speak out against Communism, and often eloquently too, one wonders if her philosophy was any less disdainful of the mass of humanity.

Atlas does not hold up the cosmos to serve the wants of the decadent and debauched.  He carries the weight of all created essence on his back in the service of an infinitely greater, higher cause than Ayn Rand’s man the triumphant appetite.  To Rand’s poisonous philosophy Atlas gives a shrug.

 

Thanks to our veterans we blog freely.

 

The Wall came tumbling down

 

Three Boismortier Sonatas

 

Comments from the cashew gallery

Political commentators, reporters with obvious partisan leanings, and political ideologues have been running their mouths for weeks and generally wrongly divining the word of truth.  Here are some more sober observations.

Republicans won big in Virginia’s 2009 elections.  What could have been a competitive and interesting race for Governor turned into a rout at the end of a long and distasteful parking lot fist fight.  Sen. Creigh Deeds ran a remarkably poor campaign that probably alienated many of the voters to whom he thought he was reaching out.

In addition to the top of the ticket, Republicans did well generally across the Old Dominion.   The results are less than surprising. The GOP was ready to run strongly in a state that has developed strong streaks of blue and red.  Issues like gun control, the economy (jobs in particular), small business concerns are important in Virginia.  The GOP addressed those issues clearly and Democrat attack ads, well crafted though they were, didn’t play to voters this year.

Republicans in Virginia also ran tough campaigns and got their volunteers out into the highways and the byways to knock on doors and raise the signs.   Democrats were valiant, but nobody was envious of any democrat’s campaign prowess this year.  They are also the guys in charge in Washington and the job market sucks.  That hurt them badly.

NJ’s incumbent Governor could spend money like few others (thrice elected NYC Mayor Bloomberg being one of those few who could and did), but the Garden State too is a financial disaster, tainted badly by political corruption.  In a rather Democrat and liberal state, this race should never have been close.  That said, the NJ GOP can hardly claim an age of “Republican Renaissance” is at hand. Republicans in NJ have much to do if they want to build on a hard fought victory.

A special election in NY’s 23rd congressional district was a lot less about conservatives and moderates fighting it out in a “GOP civil war” (conservative and liberal pundits feeding off of each other’s rancor would like to believe that) than a revolt by rank and file locals who didn’t like the backroom deal feel of NY Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava’s selection to fill a vacancy.  Mr. Hoffman might not have been the ideal candidate either, but his grass roots appeal was evident and he gained the interest and support of GOP’ers and others on the right (appalled by the Selected One’s decidedly liberal views even by the standards of GOP moderates like this blogger) who were willing to run one of their own, rather than serve the Chosen One.

Republican voters showed an unwillingness to be cowed. It reminds one of the overthrow of the Clinton dynasty by Democrat rank and file who ended up nominating and electing a young, articulate President and also taking their party back from the deified duo.

The repudiation of Ms. Scozzafava’s candidacy was a rejection of the arrogance of GOP party leaders who fancied themselves king makers and “deciders”, and what happened in NY’s 23rd had better be heeded.  A few important Republicans have egg on their faces for this one — one big shot in particular.

This was a serious rebuke to Mr. Newt’s pretensions to being some sort of a federal party boss.  If anything, Mr. Gingrich (who swaggared into the midst of this race to support a candidate who was anathema to her own voters and ultimately turned against her party) might want to think about what his role was in this fiasco.  This probably damaged his credibility with potential primary voters (generally a more conservative lot) in a 2012 presidential bid.

Mrs. Palin’s early support of Mr. Hoffman’s run was decidedly shrewd.  She placed herself on better footing with Republicans and Independents who might not agree with her on all the issues, but certainly respect her for refusing to kowtow to the backstabbers and ham-fisted kingpin wannabes in the national GOP who treated her with open contempt in 2008.  Sarah Heath Palin is without a doubt, and deservedly, a major winner in the 2009 elections.

 

Extra! Extra! Redneck Resigns!

One can hope the resignation of bigot Keith Bardwell closes an ugly chapter in American history.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/03/louisiana.interracial.marriage/index.html

 

Don’t forget to vote!

 

Arcangelo Corelli

 

It’s about time for oversight

The Obama administration is undertaking steps to reign in lunatic corporate salaries  for CEO’s and others in corporations that have taken federal bailout money.  It’s about time, in fact it’s past time, but this move should be welcomed by every investor, employee, taxpayer and customer. This isn’t a socialist inspired policy, it’s a free market move.

Zeusiswatching is unapologetically a capitalist and Republican blog.  This is also a blog that is willing to give credit to whom it’s due and President Obama deserves a word of thanks for getting a grip on this problem.  A real capitalist should welcome his moves, at least in the short term, for insisting upon accountability from companies that are on the biggest, and to date the most questionably managed welfare program ever enacted.

In the first place, investors don’t put their money into businesses to principally enrich the hired help.  That help, especially at the uppermost levels, is there to run the business profitably.  The banks, automotive manufacturers, insurers and others who have taken bailout money have by and large not run their businesses successfully or they wouldn’t have gone begging for gigantic handouts. Investors put their money into the market with the intention of earning returns on their investments.

The execs. taking bonuses from depressed businesses are taking money off the bottom line .  It’s investors and lower ranking employees who are both getting the shaft — and generally the consumer too.   Frankly, if CEO’s are taking huge bonuses rather than investing that money back into the company, both the investor and the taxpayer should be worried about ever getting their monies back.  It’s at least cause for concern.

Now almost certainly at this moment, a writer on the political right is typing furiously away at the keyboard decrying the “socialistic” control of compensation by big bad Obama or some other drivel.  The argument is wrong.  These firms are recipients of taxpayer money and as such, taxpayers have a stake and a say. If the corporations that have taken the money want to pay it back, then that should happen.  If these corporations continue to take government assistance, then like recipients of welfare to work programs so beloved by conservatives, these companies too must take direction.

There is a lesson for investors in this.  In the long run, executive level compensation is something that investors must start thinking about seriously.  Good employees are worth a great deal of money, even in a bad economic cycle.  That said, an executive taking a huge payout should always be answerable to the people who own the company.  That includes the small shareholders.  That also includes the bondholders, people who don’t own the firm but take a risk lending to a company that should be shoring up the bottom line, investing in new markets, and cutting costs, not services or the quality of goods as top level employees take money out of the bank for themselves.

 

Recent Book Reading

Salgado, Gamini (editor), Three Jacobean Tragedies. Two thumbs up

Cicero, Marcus Tullius (D.H. Berry trans.), Cicero Political Speeches. Two thumbs up.

Lebedova, Vera (Omelan Mycyk, trans.), “The wreath on the barrow of Taras Shevchenko: Childrens two-act presentation.” Two thumbs up

Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty. Two thumbs up

Seneca (Frank Justis Miller, trans.), “Medea“. Two thumbs up

Sevcenko, Ihor, Byzantine Roots of Ukranian Christianity. Two thumbs up

Ssu-Ma Ch’ien (Burton Waston, trans.), Records of the Historian from the Shih Chi.  Two thumbs up.

Bilon, Peter (S.P. Symchych, trans.), Ukrainians and their Church. One thumb up.

Xenophon (Wayne Ambler, trans.), The Education of Cyrus.  Two thumbs up

 

Resign now Redneck! (WTF??? II)

Why this guy hasn’t been thrown out of office on his Southern fried ass is beyond me.  Maybe it’s because he lives too far into the swamp to reach with a pink slip.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,567842,00.html?test=latestnews

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/16/louisiana.interracial.marriage/index.html

Click here for more info if you are just getting familiar with this WTF grade story of a hillbilly redneck white trash Justice of the Peace.