The regular promotions for NPR’s science and medicine podcast series coyly christened Petrie Dish, as hosted by one Bonnie Petrie has so consistently annoyed me in her dribble of promos for the podcast carried on the classical station that is my normal audio wallpaper, that I’ve never been in the least bit temped to listen to the series. In fact, I generally began to grind my teeth up on hearing her voice, reflecting as it does a chipper attitude of smug certitude peculiar to the ruling class and the media flacks of NPR who do their bidding, slavishly licking their boots and exclaiming on how they enjoy the taste. I regularly noted the careful editing-in of that enticing soundbite intended to publicize her podcast of the week. Yes, I used to work in providing regular news content (as an in-house flack for AFRTS) so I know very well how the sausage is made, stuffed, trimmed, sautéed, and presented for the audience to consume. I knew how to subtly color your announcer-voice to reflect your own attitude and opinion on the story o’the moment, and how to expertly select the soundbite to tickle the audience’s fancy. Or scare them out of their ever-loving minds.
Evil
The Dutch government is buying out certain farmers, paying them above market value (it sounds like the implication is that if they don’t sell, they will eventually be expropriated)…with the proviso that they will be banned forever from doing the same kind of farming anywhere in the EU.
Economically destructive…destructive of the food supply and of individual choice…destructive of knowledge accumulated over centuries.
In what sense should the EU still be considered part of the Free World?
Nuclear News Update
Westinghouse has announced the AP300, a Small Modular Reactor based on the company’s AP1000 technology.
Here’s the product information sheet.
Whatever happened to FEE’s Fresh States Project?
Here’s the original mention of Glenn Reynold’s using Fresh States to implement his Welcome Wagon project in Instapundit.
Here’s the most recent live page grab in the Internet Wayback Machine.
The current website yields 404 page not found at time of writing.
FEE’s search engine doesn’t yield any relevant results for either fresh start or welcome wagon.
Has this morphed into something else or should I go live with something less likely to die on the vine?
Folkways
Not much to do with the title of this post, save that when I began writing it, the local classical station is playing Bela Bartok’s version of three Romanian folk dances. I was reflecting on how much fun it was, two weekends ago, to be with my books at the Folkfest in New Braunfels to sit under the trees by the white building that houses the museum of hand-crafted furniture, listening to the music from the pavilion across the way … everything from traditional German songs, to country-western, and covers of rock music by a local teenage band. There were animals on display a whole farmyard of them, and a pair of camels, as well. Reenactors came and went, demonstrating their craft, and their mastery of black-powder gun and cannon-fire, as well as simply astounding displays of bladed weaponry. It was all very reassuring, watching the families, the parade of children in costumes on Sunday afternoon, led by an accordion player in lederhosen and an honor guard of Scouts with flags. The children’s masquerade march was a custom first established by the schoolmaster of New Braunfels’ public school more than a hundred and sixty years ago. Life goes on in the Shire, from day to day; much has it always has done.