Pity poor Horace Mann, Henry Bernard and other ‘educationists’ trying to sell modern schooling to such people. They had to convince such an educated population to hand over their children’s education to experts. Basically, the educators failed to convince Americans. Mann started pitching Prussian schooling, otherwise known as compulsory age-segregated classroom instruction, before 1837, but it took a dozen years and special circumstances to get the first school off the ground. That first school in 1848 in Boston snuck by because it targeted immigrants. ‘Real’ Americans didn’t send their kids there; those ‘real’ Americans became convinced that it was a good to use the state’s power to beat a little of the right kind of Jesus into the skulls of the Irish Papists kids that were showing up in Boston in large numbers at that time (the Irish Potato Famine began in 1845). From the very beginning down to this day, schooling is seen by the self-appointed Enlightened as a way to correct the moral defects – Catholicism back then, all the ‘bigotry’ and ‘hatred’ today (which of course includes Catholicism) – of the unwashed masses.
Author: Don
Snapshots
In lieu of a substantive post, here are some recent pictures from my garden.
Today’s quote
Kate McMillan at normblog twenty years ago:
Norm: If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner who would they be?
Kate: From the present – the American writer and conservative ‘hawk’ Mark Helprin, and rocker Ted Nugent. Helprin is on a lot of shortlists as ‘world’s greatest living writer’, but that’s not the only reason I’d invite him. I figure that given a few drinks, he could help me convince Nugent to beat the crap out of the third guest I’d invite – Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the socialist Canadian Prime Minister who set into motion the intellectual, military and political decay of a once proud nation.
No more toxic positivity
Western colors
The Great Penstemon Experiment is returning some preliminary results. While there are penstemons native to every state except Hawaii, species from the eastern half of the country tend to be white or lavender — nice, but generally not brilliant. Out west, however, they’re much more eye-catching, with many blues and reds. I’ve started a number of these from seed and purchased a few plants, focusing on species said to be “easy” or “adaptable.” The following all survived a full year in Kansas and are blooming now.
Prime time
The garden is at its most colorful now. Here are some recent snapshots.
More blues, plus pinks, yellows, whites, etc.
The Baptisias I started two years ago are finally blooming. Blues are (almost) always welcome, and the plants are tough and attractively bushy, but they’re no substitutes for Russell Lupines.
Continue reading “More blues, plus pinks, yellows, whites, etc.”
Springtime blues
Last year’s experiments are starting to bloom. The Penstemons native to Kansas are fine plants, but if you want the vivid blues that the genus is legendary for, you need to look to the arid west. The very blue P. mensarum is found only in a small region in Colorado. Fortunately, it is easy from stratified seed, and the plants seem perfectly happy in Kansas.
Collect the whole set
A bit of color
I took the camera out to the local community college garden this afternoon. It’s early, but I did find a few things in bloom.
Today’s quote
The only reason that’s not doublespeak is that it doesn’t mean anything at all.
The context is the EU, privacy and cyber security, but it applies to all pronouncements of the intelligentsia.
At the same link, see an example of a “future-past perfect singular subjunctive.”
*****
Bonus quote, via The Silicon Graybeard:
It’s a very gentle 10,000 g.
The day after
A couple of items of interest from yesterday.
The People’s Cube has been marching proudly in ideological circles for the betterment of Global Equality™ for two glorious decades now.
*****
Those following the tale of Maomao and Jinshi might find this of interest:
Definitely spring
While the weather can always double-cross us, it does look like winter is really over. Here are a few snapshots from the yard today.
The first lilac of the year.
Geum triflorum, or “prairie smoke,” is grown not for its peculiar little flowers, but for the fuzzy seed heads that follow in a month or two.
Bulletin
Artificial “intelligence” cheats at chess.
90 degrees later
A few weeks ago it was -10℉. Yesterday it was 80℉. Perhaps it’s now spring, but I don’t quite trust the weather.
Up and out
It’s been a while since I last visited the Cosmosphere, so I went there this past weekend to give my new used lens a workout.
Making it easier to fast
The day after tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Eight years ago Amy Welborn took a page from Lileks and published a Gallery of Regrettable Lenten Food. The bag of fish sticks in the freezer looks more appetizing now.
Just a bit chilly
It’s getting warmer — the temperature is all the way up to -6℉ now — but it was ten below, colder than central Alaska, when I snapped these pictures at the front door this morning.
Token sportsball post
(Via Serpent’s Den)
Crimson clash rejoicing
It’s February 2, when bloggers — a few, anyway — post a favorite poem, if they remember to. Here’s a sestina by Ezra Pound.
Sestina: Altaforte
Loquitur: En Bertrans de Born.
Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a
stirrer-up of strife.
Eccovi!
Judge ye!
Have I dug him up again?
The scene in at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur.
“The Leopard,” the device of Richard (Cúur de Lion).
I
Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let’s to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.
II
In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth’s foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav’n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven skies God’s swords clash.
III
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!
Better one hour’s stour than a year’s peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
Bah! there’s no wine like the blood’s crimson!
IV
And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
And I watch his spears through the dark clash
And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music
When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His lone might ‘gainst all darkness opposing.
V
The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth’s won and the swords clash
For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music.
VI
Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
There’s no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle’s rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our charges ‘gainst “The Leopard’s” rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry “Peace!”
VII
And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for always the thought “Peace!”
