What's wrong with Silicon Valley?

Apparently, lots of things.

Check the link if you want the whole story.

Here's the part that interests me:

Immigration, long a pipeline for new talent and brain power, is slumping badly, partly because of a crackdown here at home, partly because other countries got tired of exporting their best and brightest, and decided to offer their local engineers similar benefits and lifestyles (seen Infosys’ stock chart lately? How about Bidu?) Without new talent, ideas and innovation stagnate.

This doesn't compute. The last I heard, we had 300 million people here in the US. Surely some of those are of school age; some are even attending our universities.
Yet we have to import brainpower from third world countries?

Meanwhile, our college students are studying Grievance Studies, Tampon Science, Make-Up-Your-Own History, Leadership, Education for Social Change, and the Soap Opera as an Art Form. In their spare time they practice attending public events and shouting down speakers they don't agree with. When they graduate they are barely fit for retail or working for the government. The truly unemployable go on to attend law school.

On the other side of the world, people who have to study by candlelight are learning medicine, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Having learned something of value to the modern world, they then come here, taking jobs no American will do, because said American is functionally illiterate but chock full of self-esteem.

What's wrong with this picture?

Soup mug

 

Tulips, Longwood gardens

 

Acrylic painting.

Committee for a better looking Congress

Some of the Republican newbies are much better looking than the current lot.

Above, Tim Burns and Scott Brown.

Next: John Murtha and Carl Levin.


and the ever-popular Babs Boxer:



Unfair, I know. Superficial, I admit to that. But which would you rather look at for several years on the evening news?

I rest my case.

Another, pointless, useless, but expensive way to prevent terrorism...

just like airport "security."

Has the installation of  cameras in Britain been effective?  Is London now crime and terrorist free?  And where do the strapped taxpayers of New York City get the money for $30,000 cameras?

Spend a lot of money, inconvenience lots of people. with no, or negative,  results.  What's not to like?

Oysgevarfene gelt.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

From the local throwaway newspaper, a must miss

Jill Sobule belongs to a rare breed of artists....[T]]he Denver-born songwriter/guitarist/singer has tackled such topics as the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, reproduction, the French resistance movement, adolescense, and the Christian right.

Hanging out with Betty and Veronica

A friend and I were lamenting about how far away our families are. Then we got to talking about friends taking the place of family. Which got her to why neither of us has a group of friends that all get together and have good times together. I don't have such a group and neither does she. When I was in college back in the twentieth century I had such a group, but of course members of the group were always falling out--getting married or engaged, moving out of state, or getting arrested. (They didn't really get arrested, but I wanted to see how many of you were paying attention.)

We decided that what we really wanted was to hang out with Betty and Veronica down at the malt shop. Is that too unreasonable a request?

Farewell to Poetry Month

One last poem, from the Wasteland by T S Eliot:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

To which I say, Hell no! Give me April, and you can have February. Today was gorgeous. The wind was providing an example of what the word "zephyr" is all about. Everything is green, and the trees are hiding the ugly stuff you have to look at in winter.

Maybe April is cruel in Australia?

Poets spout an awful lot of nonsense. For instance Shelley said "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." No. They are not. Could they do better than the acknowledged and duly elected legislators of the U S Congress?

Let me see your papers

A young friend of mine who had only had his driver's license for six months, was stopped in darkest Passaic New Jersey late at night. There was nothing wrong with either car, or driver. But he got a ticket, which required a court appearance.

His offense? Driving without his license. He had a license but not with him.
In New Jersey, not showing your driver's license when stopped by a policeman is a crime. Fortunately, when he showed up in court, the prosecutor and judge both dismissed his case and went back to prosecuting real criminals, of which there are many in Passaic.

I have to show photo id when visiting my doctor. Trampling on my civil liberties? You make the call.

Too gorgeous?

One of the students in my art class painted a picture with just a touch of a sunset tinting a cloud. Said the teacher: "Too gorgeous." Apparently no-one can paint a sunset, it's too spectacular, too over the top.

Instantly I know what he means. Sedona, which I visited last year, is chock full of galleries featuring really bad paintings of the spectacular scenery around there. The scenery in Sedona is too lurid, too colorful. You have to see it with your own eyes to believe it. Only God, or perhaps Disney, could produce it. No painter could possibly reproduce it.

Another poem for poetry month

There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind

by Thomas Ford

There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleas'd my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.

Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice, my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I love her till I die.

Her free behaviour, winning looks,
Will make a lawyer burn his books;
I touch'd her not, alas! not I,
And yet I love her till I die.

Had I her fast betwixt mine arms,
Judge you that think such sports were harms,
Were't any harm? no, no, fie, fie,
For I will love her till I die.

Should I remain confined there
So long as Ph{oe}bus in his sphere,
I to request, she to deny,
Yet would I love her till I die.

Cupid is winged and doth range,
Her country so my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet will I love her till I die.

I love this one. There's a pretty tune someone sings to it, but I can't remember who sings it or where I heard it.

Lincoln and the Jews

I attended a lecture today on "Lincoln and the Jews." Yes, I know it sounds like the punchline of a joke, but I am interested in the Civil War, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. I learned one or two things I didn't previously know: Lincoln had a Jewish podiatrist who he thought a lot of. I guess Lincoln's feet hurt.

Perhaps not surprisingly, because the event was sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware, the audience was predominantly Jewish and on the wrong side of 60. Also not surprisingly, food was served: bagels, cream cheese, fruit, coffee, tea and soft drinks.

One attendee to another, referring to a president of the US: "He doesn't care about us. He's a muslim, you know." I don't think he was talking about Lincoln.

Beginning to read a book

Some books just turn me off from the first chapter.

[

O]ne thing that occurred to me, just because it can break a book as far as I'm concerned, relates to the level of early uncertainty and early complexity. Not to put too fine a point on it, I like to know where I am and almost at once. If Brenda is who we start with, there better be something about who Brenda is and/or what her situation is from which the story begins. If, as is usually the case, Brenda is a person with connections to other people in the world, then as they come along I'm keen to know who they are and why they matter to Brenda or in Brenda's current predicament.

I have decided that I'm an intellectual lightweight and lazy as well.

I recently decided to read some books I had been unable to "get into." Very worthwhile books: Typhoon, Kim, The Charterhouse of Parma, and others.

I was unable to read past the first chapter of most of these. Actually, that is not quite accurate, because I read some of the Charterhouse and had to stop because Fabrizzio was such a dope I couldn't really care what happened to him.

I admit that my inability to finish these books is my fault, and not that of the authors. But I didn't want to read them then, and I don't believe I ever will.

Sarah Palin turns ugly.

Contrary to the old Hollywood tradition in which a drab woman takes off her glasses and is revealed to be drop dead gorgeous, Sarah P is supposed to be plain without glasses, makeup, hairstyle, etc.

Uh, I don't think so.

Compare and contrast:

Knife sharpener explained

This photograph should have been on the box. But Tat already explained it to me.

Here's to sharper knives.

Voters win?

Big victory for voters in New Jersey?

I can't agree. This is what happens. The school board proposes a budget. The voters turn it down. They have been overwhelmingly voting down school budgets for years.

The school district then appeals to the State Department of Education, causing the municipality to hire lawyers to fight the school district. The school district wins. The voters are overruled.

Then the municipality gets to pay the lawyers for their side and the lawyers for the school district.

It's tough for voters to win.

No instructions

One of my relatives who fancies himself a gourmet cook heaped scorn on my collections of knives. They all seem to be dull and useless, although I have managed to cut my fingers on all of them, so how dull could they be? However, bowing to his superior knowledge I ordered two knives from Amazon.

While I was at it, I ordered a knife sharpener, which only cost $5.95. This came yesterday, and I have been trying to figure it out, so I could perhaps sharpen my dull knives while I await delivery of the two new and expensive ones.

This came without instructions, and I have looked at it from every angle trying to figure out how to use it. So far, no luck.

This is a joke, right?

Librarians having sex in the stacks?

A 1992 survey of 5,000 U.S. librarians, long withheld by a professional journal, found one in five respondents had engaged in sexual trysts among the stacks.

I know an awful lot of librarians, and as far as I can see, there isn't a frisk in a carload.

I did know one elderly librarian who wore orthopedic shoes and had her (grey) hair in a bun who was reliably reputed to have gotten it on with a board member 40 years previously.

I also had dinner with a group of librarians at a convention, two of whom were arranging a tryst for later. But that was in Atlantic City. In a hotel room. Atlantic City is in this respect a lot like Las Vegas; unusual behavior is more common there.

There also was a flasher who exposed himself to a page in the stacks, but he did not hold a professional degree as far as I know.

Instapundit believes differently.

No Kindle for me

I would sort of like to inhabit a book-free zone, or at least a less book cluttered zone.  Every room has piles of books.  They have overrun the shelves purchased for their storage and now are lined up on the floor in several places.  There are also baskets of books, boxes of books, and the books that were moved to the garage when we remodeled and have resided there ever since.  The thing I like about the library is that they allow me to bring the books back, so I don't have to store them anywhere.

Every once in a while, I give one of my books to one of my daughters, and I take a box of them to the Good Will every week or so, but the supply never seems to diminish.  Instead, it grows.

One reason might be that I am always buying new ones.  And used ones.  And that leads me to the reason I don't want a Kindle.  I like to go to used book sales.  The local library had one last week, and I bought $14 worth of books.  That's a lot at a library book sale.  I haven't read them all yet, but I did read one of them, The Semi-Detached Couple by Emily Eden, and enjoyed it very much.

So I've found a new author to like.  I can't wait to read her other book.  Recently I discovered Mary Cholmondeley's book, Red Pottage, which I also liked.  I've found books nobody wants to read, books that are out of print, which I enjoy.  I recently read Three Came Home by Agnes Keith, a very moving memoir about the author's interment in a Japanese camp in the Phillipines in World War II.

At the library, I got to know the works of Matt Beynon Rees and Colin Cotterill, among others.  I never would have bought their books if I hadn't encountered them accidentally.

The only way to get read books like these are at book sales or by exploring the shelves of a very musty library which doesn't discard books very often.  (You are supposed to weed the shelves frequently to get rid of the books which don't circulate.)

The Kindle is tempting, but I'll say no for now.  How do I know what I want to read, until I see it?

The Jews did it

This makes my blood boil:

[A] motion was brought before the UC Berkeley Student Senate calling on the university to divest from General Electric and United Technologies “because of their military support of the occupation of the Palestinian territories.” To give the bill an air of fairness, it also called for the creation of a committee to identify additional “companies aiding war crimes throughout the world, such as those taking place in Morocco, the Congo, and other places.”

The voting was fiercely contentious. On March 18, the UC-Berkeley Student Senate voted to pass the resolution by a vote of 16-4. The faculty senate president subsequently vetoed the motion, but a vote for overriding the veto was immediately scheduled. The vote to override the veto took place on April 14, after much lobbying and pressure and after more than 10 hour's of heated debate. The result was that the veto was sustained with 13 yes vote in favor of the override, one short of the two-thirds needed. There was also one abstention. Although the motion remains vetoed for the time being, there is sure to be a strong attempt to revive the motion, with all the debate, lobbying, pressure and anti-Israel activism which that entails.

This was part of an e-mail sent me by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

On second thought, it doesn't make my blood boil, it makes me sick to my stomach. 

"In Every Generation They Rise Up Against Us..." (Passover Haggadah)