Michael Bates: September 2017 Archives
Bootstrap Farm is starting its first winter-season Community Supported Agriculture program. Members can subscribe to a weekly share of late fall and winter vegetables ("winter squash, root vegetables, fall and winter cabbage, brocolli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, a wide range of greens, and hopefully tomatoes out of one of our greenhouses"). Other subscriptions are available for full-fat milk, bread and baked goods, eggs, jellies, and fermented foods (like sauerkraut and kimchi). Everything is produced without pesticides or fertilizers.
tragic -- Live Right. Love Well.
"As I sit in my quiet, still house, I realize how much time and emotional energy has been spent dress rehearsing tragedy. So much. It makes me angry and sad all at once because I realize it is a distraction from the enemy that works every stinkin' time. Why? Because no matter what my head knows, my heart still struggles to believe that He is for me. That He is perfect in all of His ways, even when those ways hurt my heart. I wrestle with the truth that He is a good, good father. I still fight the tension of hearing His voice and believing His words. I'm still human.
"God is God and I am not. My delusion of self-sufficiency is broken all over again and I land on this truth. And then a wave of relief follows. I don't have to know it all or figure it out. Good! Because my way is exhausting."
Liberals sick of the alt-left are taking 'the red pill' | Fox News
Hopeful news about the rising generation:
"People of all ages and ethnicities are posting YouTube videos describing 'red pill moments'--personal awakenings that have caused them to reject leftist narratives imbibed since childhood from friends, teachers, and the news and entertainment media.
"You might say that those who take the red pill have been 'triggered.' But instead of seeking out 'safe spaces,' they're doing the opposite, posting monologues throwing off the shackles of political correctness.
"Their videos can feature the kind of subversiveness that was once a hallmark of the left--before the movement lost its sense of humor."
The Supine: Wheelock's Grammar
A seldom-seen Latin construction to indicate purpose or point-of-view.
More:
Latin Verbal: Supine: ThoughtCo
Supine: The Latin Library
And you thought Latin nouns were hard to decline: Finnish has 14 cases.
THE PRONUNCIATION OF LATIN: Ancient and Modern Pronunciations
"A great deal of heat, if not light, has been spent on the problem of the "correct pronunciation of Latin". Probably most students will go with the method that their teachers use, but whichever way you follow, remember that this is a matter of scholarship, not of religion or faith. If there is any overriding parameter of judgment, it should probably be on the side of convenience, but in the last analysis the student who is really concerned with the way Latin may have sounded, as a part of his esthetic appreciation of a poet like Vergil, must try to find out the best way, so far as he can determine it, and follow it....
"Incidentally much the same misfortune has accrued to the sensitive and lovely Classical Greek language, where a perfectly attested pitch inflection of a musical fifth (marked by an acute accent in the Alexandrian period for the benefit of benighted foreigners like us) is regularly replaced by a heavy stress...."
From a collection of background essays on Latin by William Harris, Professor Emeritus of Middlebury College.
Here is a more comprehensive guide to Latin pronunciation with discussion of its evolution over time, part of the Orbis Latinus Descriptive Latin Grammar, which also has this helpful guide to alternative verb endings often found in Latin poetry.
Were Confederate Generals Traitors?, by Walter E.Williams | Creators Syndicate
From the brilliant professor of economics at George Mason U. (who happens to be an African American):
"America's first secessionist movement started in New England after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Many were infuriated by what they saw as an unconstitutional act by President Thomas Jefferson. The movement was led by Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state. He later became a congressman and senator. 'The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy -- a separation,' Pickering wrote to George Cabot in 1803, for "the people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." His Senate colleague James Hillhouse of Connecticut agreed, saying, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." This call for secession was shared by other prominent Americans, such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III and Joseph Story. The call failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
"The U.S. Constitution would have never been ratified -- and a union never created -- if the people of those 13 'free sovereign and Independent States' did not believe that they had the right to secede. Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a right that states had. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, 'Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty.' The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace....
"Confederate generals were fighting for independence from the Union just as George Washington and other generals fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who'd label Gen. Robert E. Lee as a traitor might also label George Washington as a traitor. I'm sure Great Britain's King George III would have agreed."
The Art of Being a Red State Liberal -- Strong Towns
"When you're in the minority, success is measured in inches. It's not for the faint of heart. You have to be able to care and fight and lose, and somehow summon the hope to continue caring and fighting and losing, over and over again. Until, eventually, maybe you win, just a little bit.
"But you'll never win if you don't respect the people who disagree with you."
Good advice for conservatives, too. And yes, Sarah Kobos is as gracious in conversation as she comes across in this essay.
Polygamy argument shouldn't be dismissed - and I speak from experience --
Brisbane Times
"I can speak on the subject of polygamy with some degree of understanding. My Chinese grandfather had two wives at the same time, although only one - my grandmother - was allowed into Australia. It was only after my grandmother's death that my "second grandmother" was able to migrate to Australia. It has touched my extended family deeply.
"Whilst I honour and love my grandfather deeply, what he did was selfish and unfair on those subsequent generations who have had to live with the consequences. My family is proof that love alone is not sufficient justification for marriage.
"Around the world, polygamy is accepted in 58 countries; far more than allow same-sex marriage. It is even practised in our near neighbours of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. I can confidently predict that if we allow same-sex marriage then there will eventually be a demand that polygamy be legalised too. Do we really want that?...
"If the current debate was all about love, and only love, there wouldn't be a debate. The reason there is a debate is that a change to the marriage laws will fundamentally alter the shape of Australian society.
"That is why, like millions of other Australians, I shall be voting 'no'."
Dear Tulsa - Beth Knight - Medium
"The Tulsa tech community has created this unique magic and it's something that needs to be noticed and fostered.
"I left Tulsa because I had exhausted the online resources, such as Team Treehouse and Bloc, and I did not want to pursue another four year degree. Wassim Metallaoui told me that a program in Denver called Turing could take me from a dabbler to a real software developer. It was an exhausting seven month program, but I did it. I found a job in Boulder that I will be starting this week and it's all roses. But I believe there should have been an option like this for me in Tulsa. Tulsa has a lower cost of living and a much more actively engaged programming community. Right now, the most difficult part of hiring a junior programmer is finding a company with a mentorship program in place. There is a rough 3 month on boarding process, but after that you have a fairly decent programmer. After a year of working they're considered mid level. The ramp up time is rough but it is brief. Maybe it needs to be subsidized by someone, I don't know. But it's not long to turn someone from a dabbler into a developer....
"Right now bootcamps all over the nation are shutting down because there is a glut of junior developers in the market. But not in Tulsa. Tulsa is a place where people are committed to their community and will do whatever it takes to see it thrive. This is my plea to companies to set up these junior positions and the city to bring in the bootcamps to retrain people. It's doable. I am doing it. I was not able to pursue this dream in Tulsa because the opportunity was not there, but it can be. I don't know how to fix the educational or transportation system, but I do know how to bring in more skilled labor. And when you have skilled labor, the companies follow."
My comment: Tulsa Technology Center and Tulsa Community College are rolling in taxpayer dollars, thanks to their dedicated slices of our property taxes. This is exactly the sort of program they ought to offer. Skills-focused training is why they exist.
How Oxford and Peter Singer drove me from atheism to Jesus - The Veritas Forum - The Veritas Forum
"Singer recognised that philosophy faces a vexing problem in relation to the issue of human worth. The natural world yields no egalitarian picture of human capacities. What about the child whose disabilities or illness compromises her abilities to reason? Yet, without reference to some set of capacities as the basis of human worth, the intrinsic value of all human beings becomes an ungrounded assertion; a premise which needs to be agreed upon before any conversation can take place.
"I remember leaving Singer's lectures with a strange intellectual vertigo; I was committed to believing that universal human value was more than just a well-meaning conceit of liberalism. But I knew from my own research in the history of European empires and their encounters with indigenous cultures, that societies have always had different conceptions of human worth, or lack thereof.  The premise of human equality is not a self-evident truth: it is profoundly historically contingent.  I began to realise that the implications of my atheism were incompatible with almost every value I held dear."
Office Cat Loves Money So Much He's Stealing It From Strangers - The Dodo
It's GuruStu's office kitty, right here in Tulsa's East Village.
Philadelphia's Placing a $500 Million Bet on Play - Next City
My first reaction to the headline was, "No city should be putting a half-billion-dollar bet on anything!" But the headline of this article doesn't reflect its contents. It's really about a lot of things: How rec centers can build community in a neighborhood, the importance of passionate volunteers from the neighborhood to make that happen, how to ensure that city grant money is effectively deployed, how to keep long-time rec center supporters engaged while making newcomers welcome in the decision-making process. There are many encouraging stories packed into this story, which is really about urban husbandry, and how to deploy a big pot of money strategically, and in small doses, to nurture signs of life around the city.
