Sure wouldn't have guessed that was South Africa.

What is that? Glass from a smashed car window?

SA seems to bear some resemblances to the US.

As an outsider to both, I've often thought the similarities are remarkable.

This and this could so easily be scenes from Westerns.

This style of mega-revivalism is something I can't readily imagine anywhere but South Africa or the U.S.

Plus South African rugby teams have cheerleaders, of all things. The list could go on and on.

Even "apartheid" is just Dutch for "segregation" - but having the segregationists running the country throughout the Cold War clearly did make a big difference.

Well, the Pass Laws were pretty draconian (banning blacks from permanent settlement outside their "tribal homeland" - effectively a reservation - and making them carry a permit at all times when residing in "white" territory to work in the mines, or the farms, or the factories), but a lot of the rest of apartheid wouldn't have looked much different from segregation.

The real difference is that the equivalent of Birmingham's "segregationist resistance" weren't making a last stand in the 1960s, but were running the country and entrenching themselves throughout the establishment by means of a secret "fraternity". Which as I said, makes a very big difference indeed.

It would have to be a Wallace who'd convinced enough northern Democrats that the most sensible solution to urban unemployment, illegal immigration and racial violence would be to prohibit southern blacks from moving to northern cities, then made segregation federal policy and secretly staffed the FBI with Klansmen.

As you say - it doesn't compute. There are some obvious differences, as well as some intriguing similarities.

One of the things I wonder is how much of the similarity is due to similar circumstances and constraints, and how much to the "elect nation" and "providential purpose" ideology of Puritan Anglo-Dutch colonial settlement. I'm supposed to be reviewing this book for the Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, so it's a little on my mind.

Jeff Woodward has a new blog (really new--3 days). You might want to check it out.

http://successiorerum.blogspot.com/

AMDG

Amusing album cover of the day:

http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/288/120/423/12042341/300x300.jpg

...mmm...bruschetta...(in Homer Simpson voice)

Good to hear from you, Dave. Funny, I was thinking about you this morning. Hope you're doing well, and the busy-ness is the good kind.

Oh, some good, some not so. Oh well.

I did attend a lovely wedding at Notre Dame last weekend. Zowie, what a beautiful campus and basilica.

I was thinking of Dave just exactly this morning.

That was clearly taken from the passenger's side.

I think I need to rescue that duck from the company he's keeping.

AMDG

Thanks y'all. It's good to hear from you too. (Mac and Janet, I've adopted the plural second person address, but it is new to me still and certain situations don't feel right - would you have written y'all twice in that first sentence?)

Another good busy: We worked hard Saturday and got a lot accomplished making Sunday especially nice. Pam made a wonderful lemon mousse and I three batches of bruschetta. With such abundance, we invited several neighbors over to share it. Eventually, teenagers joined us and our own teens. It was easy, summery, and joyous. Deo gratias.

For foodies and geeks: batch 1) hybrid tomatoes and genovese basil - good but worst of the day, 2) heirloom tomatoes and genovese - definitely better, and 3) yellow and green tomatoes with lime basil - wow was it fun and it looked great, tasted pretty good too. Also, I figured out how to do the crostini much better than before.

I'm pretty sure I've said "thanks, y'all".

That sounds like a great evening. As for my cooking, my ego in relation to that field of endeavor took a hit from Craig Burrell the other day--scroll down to the "Master of the culinary art" post:

http://cburrell.wordpress.com/

OK Dave, Just NEVER use y'all in the singular and you can't go too far wrong.

AMDG

Well, that was certainly charitable.

A friend on FB linked to this article about the 20 worst-paying college degrees:

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/110196/20-worst-paying-college-degrees-in-2010?mod=edu-continuing_education

Interesting that almost all the things that have any lasting value are on this list.

AMDG

Not at all surprising, alas.

Re driving north--you'd probably have to go quite a ways, wouldn't you?

Here's a refreshing album cover for you. It's called "Bath Time Again."

Sorry Janet. My attempts at good natured humor sometime misfire.

If it's like a community fridge, does that mean the old stuff is getting bad and smelly?

AMDG

"Memphis, the second-hottest city this summer, has had 72 days above normal so far. Normally high temperatures range from 88.5 in June to 92 in July, with a record 111 set in 1918. But so far it has spent all but six days (and those days were in July) above normal."

But today's not quite so bad.

AMDG

AMDG

What a great picture.

Life was so much better when everything was black and white.

AMDG

Yeah, so?

Yes, I saw the kid with the mouse ears.

I plan to go in 1962. You're welcome to come.

AMDG

No! I just pulled that date out of thin air. And I was originally going to say 1955, so how weird is that?

AMDG

On September 11, 2002, a young man for whom I had provided daycare for several years, was found dead from an overdose of drugs and alcohol. It was his 29th birthday.

The next day, one of my children called me to say that she had watched one of her friends die after he took Ecstasy the previous weekend.

The next week, I got an email about a young man who had played on my son's soccer team. He had died in an "accident." It wasn't an automobile accident.

In October, a young woman who had been a friend of my kids since she was about 7 rolled over in bed and found her husband of two months dead. Later, they found a bottle of pills in their driveway.

I spent the rest of that year very angry, and when I think about this, it makes me very angry and very sad--and this is what I think about on 9/11.

So, if you have a minute, you might offer up a prayer for Ricky, Alex, Gabe and Jim and their families today.

AMDG

This is my vehicle on the road of life. (Great combination of album title and art, huh?)

'brank' = 'brand'

I'm surprised y'all have never heard of Alex Orange Juice. But then we knew we had an image problem, so maybe never having heard of it is better. Alex will be knocking on your door late one night to deliver the samples.

Yikes is right. I'll get my own orange juice, thanks.

New album of the day?. Well, song, anyway.

Ampersand Day! (binary 100110 = ASCII "&")

I can hardly wait till 10/10/10.

Well, will we be able to see each other?

Wait! Shouldn't we have the stars today?

Janet, you'll be pleased to know that my odometer has mysteriously started working again, so I may yet see the 200,000 mile rollover. But my joy will be diminished by the fact that it won't be real, because by now it's off by thousands, and in fact the car has probably already passed 200,000 actual miles. (That's 321868.8 km.)

Who knew that I had this latent scientist hidden within me all these years. DNA--who could make up something like that?

AMDG

sigh

sigh

Rain, rain, rain, and flogs all over the road on the way home tonight.

AMDG

I looked at weather.com just now to see if we might hope for a bit more rain to supplement the inch or so we had on Sunday. According to them, it's raining heavily here. They must have some really sensitive instruments.

My first thought was "better I should ask him to pray for me." But I have prayed for him.

Berquist is probably a Swedish name. Was he cradle or convert?

Just realized that he died of the feast of All Souls.

AMDG

I know that's a Star Wars guy, but it reminds me of that Twilight Zone.

As for the first one, don't make me want to go there.

AMDG

FYI, I'm having computer problems. May not be online till tomorrow (Sunday) sometime.

Well, I thought it was Ryan, too, but he says he's never seen it.

AMDG

Ok, what Ryan recommended was Sandman. He had a link to a sample chapter which was quite interesting and well-done but a little disturbing--it involved some Aleister Crowley types and a sort of demon.

I'd just like to say--my cousin has given birth to her first baby (boy)!!!

*spinster aunt jumping up and down*

And now, back to the regular scheduled programming.

Congratulations, spinster aunt!

AMDG

"We build a strong 'magnetic bottle' around where we produce the antihydrogen [atoms] and, if they're not moving too quickly, they are trapped..."

Seems like you would not want to make the antimatter mad by trapping it.

I can see a movie coming: pound of antimatter created, stolen by evil persons, squad of action heroes ordered to retrieve it, ending with one of them physically forcing, with superhuman strength, the lid of the container down on the antimatter trying to escape.