The Muppets

This clip from The Muppet Movie (1979) always makes me smile. Note the cameo by Steve Martin toward the end.

It appears that there will be a new Muppet movie in 2011, so it's time to catch up with our shaggy, googly-eyed friends: Ode to Joy, Popcorn and Bohemian Rhapsody should brighten your day.

No... really. It's called "tyranny."

When "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (you know, the law that is currently reducing patient care and driving up prices) passed the U.S. Congress, I was as angry and as disgusted with government as I've ever been. My blog posting on that evening was entitled, "Tyranny", and I referred to the bill as "unconstitutional, immoral and fiscally unsustainable". Those who disagreed took issue both with my use of the word "tyranny" - apparently imprecise and inflammatory - and my assertion of unconstitutionality. Interestingly, no one contested "immoral" or "fiscally unsustainable", but I'm sure critics have more important things to do, like polishing their jack boots and competing for spots on Death Panels.

I'm doubling down.

The key provisions of the "health care" "reform" act are unconstitutional. Ever since soon-to-be-ex-Speaker Pelosi deemed the very question of constitutionality un-serious, sober people have come to understand that, in fact, relying upon the Commerce Clause to justify the bill's primary mechanisms is shameless, utter nonsense. Lawsuits claiming that the bill is invalid on constitutional grounds are piling up, while judges and scholars are falling over themselves to confirm the validity (and, yes, seriousness) of that argument.

The American belief is that man is born into this world completely free, and that all subsequent joys, rewards, benefits, and consequences - both pleasurable and painful - are primarily determined by what man does with that freedom. The U.S. Constitution acknowledges this, and establishes government not to grant individual liberties, but to protect man from encroachment upon those liberties (including encroachments by the government itself). The U.S. constitution then grants very specific powers - "enumerated powers" - that give the government the right and ability to perform certain functions toward this end. Those powers not given to the government by the Constitution are very simply unconstitutional. Period.

Over the last 100 years (another direct result of the 17th Amendment), the U.S. Supreme Court has colluded with the U.S. Congress (the USSC is confirmed and funded by Congress) to expand the accepted understanding of one of these powers: the ability "to regulate [...] commerce among the several States". The interstate commerce clause was originally and rightfully seen as a firm restriction of Congress's ability to enact legislation. However, we have come to the point where some believe that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the ability to do anything, including forcing a private individual to transact business with private companies to obtain a service against the will of the individual - as in the health care reform law.

If government can confiscate your property, your income, and your freedom to make your own economic and medical choices, what can't it do, exactly? And if the answer is "nothing", then that's tyranny.

(And Mr. Obama, would you please clarify if this really is a tax, or if - as you said in 2009 - you still "absolutely reject that notion"? It actually does matter to those of us who have to pay it...)

December 13 UPDATE: Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional:

In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Virginia, Judge Hudson wrote that
the law's central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance
exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

No kidding.

Long live rock and roll.

On Saturday night, I was in New York City with my brother to attend a concert at Maxwell's - just across the river in Hoboken, NJ. The opening band is one of my favorite garage / surf / hillbilly bands called, The Woggles. They were followed by the always entertaining Southern Culture on the Skids. A grand time was had by all.

Billboard magazine even wrote a review of the show.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Woggles:

Pink Martini

This evening, I ambled down to Barbican Hall, hoping to score a ticket to the sold out Pink Martini show. I was standing desperately in the "returns" line when someone simply walked up, handed me a ticket, and said that she was giving it to me for nothing. I already liked Pink Martini, but somehow, free music sounds better.

Limited government and the problem of Progressivism.

George F. Will has an outstanding column today about the fundamental incompatibility between the constitutional vision for limited government and the contrasting view of The Progressives (Wilsonians). (Read the article by clicking here.)

I am fascinated with this conflict inherent in our modern politics. The RestoreFederalism website is my attempt to focus attention on a specific, emblematic issue at the core of this debate. Three years ago, very few people were talking about it. Today, articles on the subject are written every week.

Now that's progress.

Image is James Madison by Gilbert Stuart.

To live is to fly.

Painting by Michael Sowa

Won't say I love you babe

Won't say I need you babe

But I'm going to get you babe

and I will not do you wrong

Living's mostly wasting time

and I waste my share of mine

but it never feels too good

so let's not take too long

You're as soft as glass and I'm a gentle man

we got the sky to talk about

and the world to lie upon

Days up and down they come

like rain on a conga drum

forget most, remember some

but don't turn none away

Everything is not enough

nothing is too much to bear

where you been is good and gone

all you keep's the getting there

To live is to fly low and high

so shake the dust off of your wings

and the sleep out of your eyes

It's goodbye to all my friends

It's time to go again

Think of all the poetry

and the pickin' down the line

I'll miss the system here

the bottom's low and the treble's clear

but it don't pay to think too much

on the things you leave behind

I may be gone but I won't be long

I'll be bringing back the melody

and the rhythm that I find

We all got holes to fill

and them holes are all that's real

some fall on you like a storm

sometimes you dig your own

But choice is yours to make

time is yours to take

some dive into the sea

some toil upon the stone

To live is to fly low and high

so shake the dust off of your wings

the sleep out of your eyes

Lyrics by The Cowboy Junkies

Anna Elizabeth

Our daughter, Anna Elizabeth Truslow, was born on March 29, 2010 at 4:35 in the afternoon. She weighed eight pounds and eleven ounces, and was twenty one and a half inches long.

We continue to update truslow.org with the latest photos of both girls.

The Crow

One of my favorite albums over the last year has been Steve Martin's bluegrass / banjo album called, "The Crow." As Steve once said in an old stand-up routine, "You just can't sing a depressing song when you're playing the banjo... When you're playing the banjo, everything's okay... I think it's the one thing that could have saved Nixon." The video above is the title song from that album, but if you click here, you can watch an absolutely amazing performance with Steve and other banjo luminaries on The Late Show with David Letterman.

Tyranny

The Gadsden Flag

The "health care" "reform" bill forced through the U.S. Congress this evening is unconstitutional, immoral and fiscally unsustainable. The process by which this bill was passed is deceitful, plainly corrupt, unbecoming of that body, and assures thirty more years of bitter, partisan divide ("hope" that President Obama would unite this country was exposed for the myth it was). The bill creates for citizens a new relationship with the federal government that is quintessentially un-American, and antithetical to the Framer's core belief that government is created to secure individual liberties. It is the most consequential (not to mention entirely untested) change to the American way of life in almost a century, and every one of those who voted for the bill should be removed from office come November.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

- C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

State legislatures should act immediately to repeal the 17th Amendment and end this tyranny of the mob.

Don't Do That

Let the wild rumpus start.

From Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak

Don't Do That

It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything

hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red

along with some resentment I’d held in

for a few weeks, which was not helped

by the sight of little nameless things

pierced with toothpicks on the tables,

or by talk that promised to be nothing

if not small. But I’d consented to come,

and I knew what part of the house

their animals would be sequestered,

whose company I loved. What else can I say,

except that old retainer of slights and wrongs,

that bad boy I hadn’t quite outgrown—

I’d brought him along, too. I was out

to cultivate a mood. My hosts greeted me,

but did not ask about my soul, which was when

I was invited by Johnnie Walker Red

to find the right kind of glass, and pour.

I toasted the air. I said hello to the wall,

then walked past a group of women

dressed to be seen, undressing them

one by one, and went up the stairs to where

the Rottweilers were, Rosie and Tom,

and got down with them on all fours.

They licked the face I offered them,

and I proceeded to slick back my hair

with their saliva, and before long

I felt like a wild thing, ready to mess up

the party, scarf the hors d’oeuvres.

But the dogs said, No, don’t do that,

calm down, after a while they open the door

and let you out, they pet your head, and everything

you might have held against them is gone,

and you’re good friends again. Stay, they said.

This poem by Stephen Dunn was found in The New Yorker, June 8, 2009.

So... how ya' doin'?

"Falling Man" (Gold Butte, Nevada), by Kenneth Johnson

As Robert Plant once said, "It's been a long time since I wrote in my blog."

Fatherhood, jobs and whatnot have kept me frantically busy and away from the online project I envisioned at the end of 2008. I have interpreted 13 months of inactivity as a definitive sign that the project will not get underway soon. It is time to shelve hope (a common practice these days), and do what one can do.

Let me 'splain 2009. No... there is too much, let me sum up:

I spent the first nine months of this year being run ragged by employment and fatherhood. Thankfully, I was able to sneak in some joyful, notable events: I kept up with my running, including the ING Half-Marathon and The Peachtree Road Race (10k). We traveled to New Orleans for a Liberty Fund conference. I escaped to Baltimore to see the Chelsea / AC Milan soccer match. We visited Sewanee twice. I traversed the country by train, from Atlanta to Tucson.

In October, I turned 40 - thank you, thank you - and celebrated by writing two articles that were published. The first was on the subject of the 17th Amendment and was printed in Roll Call. The second addressed specific questions of morality in the health care debate and was printed in The American Thinker.

Then, at the end of October, I learned that I would have to leave GSU at the end of the year as a result of the university's accreditation process (too many non-Ph.D.s) and everything stopped - again. A full-court job hunt began. It was like having a third (or if you count parenthood, a fourth) job.

The year ended well, with a family (Truslow / Ferguson) Christmas trip to Jekyll Island, Georgia.

2010 will be filled with all sorts of exciting changes, fo' shizzle. I expect so many changes that I doubt I can keep everyone informed... unless I blog it. Watch for right-side updates this week.

So, here we are again.

And so it goes...

"I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn't mean to do that. Please, continue. You were saying something about best intentions." - Jules Winnfield

I stopped blogging back in October with the very best of intentions: to free myself of the pressure to produce that had crept in during the previous year of writing online, and to resume with a more creative direction.

Then, as should have been expected, life intervened.

So here we are, at the dawn of a new year: a good time to refocus and move forward. The creative theme will remain unarticulated for now, though I've provided a bit of a hint in the cartoon above. I'm interested to see if readers can figure it out on their own, or if it's simply too tangential and obscure for healthy folk. We'll see where this goes.

I wish you a happy new year.

Only connect...

February 7, 2009:  Updates are coming.  Seriously.

Blog Gone Bad

Today marks the end of Sed Digressio's first year. It was on October 15, 2007 that I moved some randomly assembled photos, paintings and poems first posted on truslow.org to this platform, and it's been an interesting experiment: to create a virtual home for myself, a place I could visit when I was traveling that would help me feel grounded.

I've decided to take a break, and resume blogging in November with a new direction. I'm not entirely sure what that is, yet, but I'm working on it.

You might be interested to know that over the last year, 2,300 visitors came to this blog 4,200 times, viewing 10,300 pages. The most popular content (in order) has been: Michael Sowa, Bartolome Esteban Murillo, Wassily Kandinski, the photos, Hope, Edward Hopper and Edvard Munch. The interest in Michael Sowa has been especially keen: Almost 10% of all Sed Digressio traffic originates in Germany.

It's time to do something different. I hope you'll come back and see what transpires in November.

The Chief Digressor

P.S. During the hiatus, I'll still be updating Merrie Frances pictures on http://www.truslow.org/.

No kidding.

Almost a year ago, I posted what I still consider to be one of the oddest duets in musical history.  Take a moment to welcome a new addition to that list:  Norah Jones and Keith Richards, the rock and roll icon now known primarily for snorting the ashes of his father.

Over the line, Smokey!

Good comedy depends on an awareness of the audience's limits, the discipline to stay within them, and the wisdom to know when they can be trampled. It strikes me as a delicate social undertaking: the performer risks his relationship with the audience as he navigates between what little will succeed and the mass of what will fail.

On any given day, this blog endeavors to rise slightly above the gutter, usually to reproduce art, philosophy and music that transcends normal life. But today - perhaps inspired by my ignorance of the audience and my fundamental suspicion of lines - I push the boundaries by offering three of my favorite, all-time limit-testers.

These are not for children, and while there is nothing offensive about the video content, you wouldn't want your co-workers to hear the sound. Consider yourself warned.

The opening scene of the film "Chasing Amy".

From the television show, "Kids in the Hall".

Finally, I direct you to this link of Steve Martin performing a classic portion of his stand-up routine.

Sizzlin'

This morning, I ran my second 10k of the year (and, to be honest, ever): The Buckhead Sizzler - so named because the course is relatively flat and runners expect good finishing times. My Peachtree Road Race time on July 4th was shamefully near the 75 minute mark, and today my goal was 55 minutes.

I'm happy to report that I finished the Sizzler in 54:33 (an average of about 8:47 per mile). If the same rules apply to next year's Peachtree as this year's, today's results should qualify me for a "time group placement", meaning that I won't start in the back of the pack. My next goal is to run a 10k in 50 minutes, so maybe I'll speed up even more between now and next July.

I have posted my personal GPS track here. My GPS seems to think that I went a shade further than the official length of 6.21 miles, and so does GoogleMaps, and so does my car's odometer. At least the race organizers and I agree on my finishing time, which is all that matters. I can only tell you that it felt like a million miles, and it took everything out of me. Readers who are marathon runners continue to have my utmost respect (though increasingly I question your motives and sanity).

My Oscar Moment: I'd like to thank my parents (immortalized here in this must-see portrait), who came out and cheered me on, and my wife, who not only was the most enthusiastic fan on the course - baby in tow - but has made all my athletic growth possible over the last five months.

Jet Man

As regular readers are aware, I am not entirely a fan of man's technological quest to overcome nature. However, I would be willing to reconsider this philosophical view if somebody would give me a jet pack.  I have no statistics on this fact, but I suppose that every boy has had this dream.

In this morning's news, I see that Yves Rossy (here is the "Jet Man" website) will attempt to fly across the English Channel later today.

Yar!

In celebration of today - International Talk Like A Pirate Day - I offer this bit of wisdom: a family that plunders together, stays together.

Moose

As the weather turns cooler, I always think of Autumn in Montana, and the critters found there. Photo taken by Steve Wall.

Lingering beauty.

With only three previous posts this month, one might suppose that I have been on the road. Sadly untrue. August ushered in a surprising change in my employment situation (I'm now both here and here), requiring yet another fundamental modification in my life "plan" (ha).  Still, while one can take the boy out of traveling, one can't take traveling out of the boy: so on this final day of August, I write (as I did here, and here) to share some ideas regarding beauty from The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton.  

de Botton writes that "a dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one's life. There is an urge to say, 'I was here, I saw this, and it mattered to me'".  To explain this more fully, he focuses on the philosophy of John Ruskin.

Ruskin believed that "there was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it. The most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so."

de Botton explains, "If drawing had value even when practiced by those with no talent, it was, Ruskin believed, because it could teach us to see - that is, to notice rather than merely look. In the process of re-creating with our own hands what lies before our eyes, we seem naturally to evolve from observing beauty in a loose way to possessing a deep understanding of its constituent parts and hence more secure memories of it."

Can you imagine lingering in a place for 20 minutes to draw a scene that has captivated your attention, rather than pausing for 5 seconds behind your camera and moving on? What about coming home from a trip with a book of sketches, rather than a disk of images? Which one is more inclined to help us truly possess that which we experience when we travel?  Ruskin too "began to note the devilish problem that photography created for the majority of its practitioners.  Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it."

I gave up photography for over a decade, returning to it half-heartedly only three years ago, for similar reasons.  I found that with my camera in hand, I became preoccupied with the question, "does this make a good picture?" rather than, "how does this place, this scene, this moment, impact me?"  Even though I am happy to have our new camera, I still fear that photography is giving me a false sense of permanence, an excuse for not living in the present moment: "With this photo, I can always come back and re-live this again some day." Not true.

Besides, can you imagine trying to draw the Bavarian chaos above? Okay, bad example...