Negative Railroad

The Barrister at Maggie‘s Farm links to a collection of photos of the previous Penn Station in Manhattan. He begins by quoting a NY Times editorial:

"Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn't afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."

—"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times editorial, October 30, 1963

The building was a remarkable monument. And Minneapolis went through it own period of catastrophic renewal, where the most notorious lost monument was the Metropolitan Building.

If I cross Groundhog Day with railroading and view the result through a fuzzy Minneapolis filter, I see this:

For Minnesota kids, Casey Jones was a friendly TV host, named after a legendary railroad engineer.

One of the most beloved figures in local television was a man who portrayed a railroad engineer, dressed in a pin-striped jacket, cap and overalls, with a red 'kerchief around his neck, and called himself "your old buddy, Casey Jones."

Among the week’s big headlines is Facebook’s initial public offering. They made a billion dollars last year. Karl Denninger, however, isn’t buying:

• The company identifies no particular need for the capital; it has cash. This strongly implies that the only reason to IPO is for the insiders to monetize their position. Why, if it's rapidly growing in value and there is no meaningful risk to that value vaporizing (and nobody knows better than top management if this is the case!) would the company do this now?
   
• All of the direct payments revenue are for the purchase of "virtual goods" (e.g. things on Farmville); there is no actual hard good or service delivered in exchange for money. That's not shopping, it's pretty close to burning money.  How long will that furnace keep operating?

Those are only two of his reasons. They’re enough for me.

Since the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has stalled in the face of a popular uprising, I am stealing* this description:

The soft leftists are realizing the hard leftists meant what they said.

(*If I remembered where I read it, I would happily give credit.)

When we give government some power, we must expect it will use that power:

As for all of the people out there on the internet having a massive freak out about the government potentially damaging something they love… WELCOME TO THE PARTY.

Borepatch brings to our attention an anniversary, with a call to action:

Brad_In_MA emails to point out that Thursday is the anniversary of the epic screwing of TJIC by the People's Soviet of Massachusetts*. He has a call to action that is filled with win:

I propose a Jan 19 BUYcott of anything 2a related, in support of TJIC. Mind putting up such a post? I plan on getting a few targets and a brick of some .22lr range ammo for my ruger 22/45, aka Miss Cherry. The idea is to BUY something. Anything. Price does not matter.  Quantity does not matter. In short, a simple request for a simple action to support a Brother in Need.

I would go one step further, and suggest a buycott (the opposite of a boycott, 'natch, where you purposely buy from someone as opposed to refusing to buy from them). As it turns out, TJIC is an entrepreneur, and has a company that makes this easy for everyone: Smartflix.

Vanderleun glances at something interesting:

Ironically, a young generation that considers the struggle for same-sex marriage the civil rights struggle of its day is choosing to avoid the marital estate.

Minnesota voters will have an opportunity to define marriage this fall:

The question would be presented to voters as follows:

"Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?"

If passed, the Minnesota Constitution will be Amended:

Article XIII; Section 13.

Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota.

From all I see and ovehear, the cool kids are clearly voting “no”. Supporting gay marriage seems more about making one’s own identity than thinking through what marriage means.

It’s one of my maxims that “the people” is not “the government”. When we talk about America, the nation, the country, the idea, I say that’s something quite different from the electeds and bureaucratic structure which seeks to administer law and uphold social order.

Righty hawks fairly accuse the current President as “blaming America first”. Obama has stated the country is flawed. He sees racism and victimization that government power must rectify. He wants a Constitution that includes positive rights, obligating each of us to a collective goal. Barry blames the American people and the American culture.

The concept of blowback,

The hometeam Vikings didn’t give me much to enjoy. Adrian Peterson is a strong magic and Jared Allen is a legendary beast. Otherwise, they were a 3-13 team.

That left me space to check out the Tebow phenomenon. I don’t know enough to assert that he can or cannot have an NFL career. He sure is fun to watch, though.

His faith pleases me, too. He never seems to put it anyone’s face, but people can’t stop taking about it. Contrary to barroom chatter, he does not think G-d influences games. He’s clean living, respectful, works overtime to improve himself and most refreshing for the NFL, humble. Tebow is trying to be a Virtuous Person, and he is doing it with integrity by doing it in public.

Tebow’s success seems to needle all the factions I love to see needled.

Vox writes about his first playoff win tonight (in overtime, of course):

A temple (from the Latin word templum) is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites.

It is easy to imagine prayers offered and sacrifices made in a grand space like this. One might say commerce is the American religion. Our glory was built on rails. Every respectable town had a train station. Cities built temples of transportation.

Trade and transport are both future-oriented. People go somewhere to get something they think will make tomorrow better than yesterday.

It is a New Year and a new day. Where are you headed?

If we had a modern George Bailey, he would be ridiculed mercilessly. The Christmas present has no appreciation for virtue. Popular culture militates against goodness.

Seasonal feel-good stories notwithstanding, cynicism triumphs. We expect corruption.

A local TV news story reports that people are foregoing Christmas Day services. Churches are responding to reduced demand, canceling the sacraments. For all the wonder and joy to be found in being with family at Christmas time, when we put that above being with G-d, we are lost.

I have transcended my personal era of humbuggery only to find that in the interim, my culture has abandoned everything I found distasteful. I have returned to an empty house.

I do not rail against commercialization and consumerism. We are rich; let us enjoy. But we have moved past even the pagan observations that hold some days special. If no days are holy, every day is profane.

I paraphrase Gandhi, I think, in asking if you do not accept a gift, to whom does that gift belong?

A Christmas present is offered. Do you accept?

I am not a percentage. I am a free man.

It is the eleventh of September, time for the annual admonishment, “Never Forget.” But all we can do is whisper into the winds of history. We have not forgotten Pearl Harbor, but there are a diminishing few who can recall a visceral memory of a date that will live in infamy.

We will forget. Or, our descendants will. They will have their own tragedies and their own battles, as real and as urgent what we honor today.

We are called to remember courage, but it is courage inspired by a defeat. The United States lost the Battle of September 11th.

December 7th would be a national day of shame if that defeat was not avenged. How will we avenge 9/11? Ten years on, is it too late to redeem that loss through a complete victory over the enemy who still haunts us? If we could accept a surrender, would we?

Every day at U.S. airports, the sting of our defeat resonates. Our national culture is ever more open to submission and petty humiliations in the name of security. The common man was called to respond to Japan’s attack with sacrifice and with resolve. In response to al-Qaeda we cower.

Today starts an exercise over at I Want a New Left:

I thought it would be a good idea to spend the first five days of August recounting Japanese atrocities during (and preceding) World War II. The Japanese have been our allies throughout my lifetime, and ordinarily I wouldn’t make a point of mentioning their atrocities, but too many liberals and leftists make such a fuss on Aug. 6 about our dropping an atom bomb on Japan that young people today often don’t even know the context of that decision. To counter this ignorance, I want the first five days of August to be used for reminding them of some of Japan’s atrocities from the WWII era.

Happy Bataan Death March Day to you.

Evil comes in many guises, although it usually follows patterns.

Quoted from: Neo-neocon

Think of the past three days. What you did, where you did, and with whom it was done. In the current world, is there a nation where those three days of activity and experience would have been better?

Unlikely. For any person with some intelligence and some motivation, the current United States is the regime most friendly to flowering the human potential. And that’s what we’re supposed to be waving flags about today. U.S.A.! U.S.A! U.S.A.!

Some faction will use their liberty to dwell on the persistent injustices that come when fallen man is given his measure of freedom. The cheerleaders will counter with all the instances where the United States (or the States themselves) have corrected injustice. Or at least the institutional expression thereof.

In the top tier there, slavery is ended. And black culture is probably the single largest influence on the broad American culture. Some peoples have come a long way.

Of note this Memorial Day along the intertracks is Sarah Palin’s appearance at the Rolling Thunder rally in D.C. At first blush, it was heartening to see a Presidential-level political figure who appeared at ease among bikers.

I choose this photo because I see she still has sexy glasses in biker gear. She is wearing a prominent crucifix. And it shakes stereotypes—for those who don’t see many real bikers—that there are indeed people other than fat hillbillies who ride.

A discussion of this event over at ChicagoBoyz clued me into a deeper cultural and political significance. Rolling Thunder is not just another motorcycle club:

As someone who grew up in a city and ended up in a rural area, I can talk about what it’s like to make such a move. These days it is much easier to live in a rural area now that we have the Internet and email available to keep us connected. What initially seemed like a problem, the lack of good shopping, is less of a problem because even when I do get to the good stores I want to patronize, they don’t seem to have what I want. It’s much more convenient just to order on the Internet. The major problem of rural areas, then, is simply the lack of good restaurants, for which I have no solution other than an occasional trip to a big city.

Big-box shopping is often dismal. They stock everything, but only the thre most popular sizes or styles. I have friends who live a mile or few away from me in the big city, and I rarely see them, but stay in touch thanks to the intertracks.

I have some foodie pallys, and after a recent dinner, they agreed that the best measure of a city was its dining scene. Myself, I don’t go out much anymore.

Perhaps I should consider escaping the planners, the criminals and assorted leftoid nags that define urban living.

And everyone has an opinion. Mine?

Let me know when I can travel without a pre-flight procto exam. Then I will wave a flag.

The war is not over. Who’s face will the enemy wear now?

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. The past few days I have been involved in an argument about race, culture and loyalty over at Cobb’s.

My opponents hold that there are two kinds of people, racists and Progressives. I find that view insufficient. Prejudice and tolerance are seldom—these days, in this culture—so simply polar and superficially recognizable. The Shoah, in contrast, was entirely about blood. Ethnicity and loyalty were not important.

There is a line between intolerance and genocide. That line has been intentionally blurred: