Scenes from Stately Price Manor.

Monday, Dinner Time:

We had sat down for my famous breakfast burritos (chorizo, scrambled eggs and green peppers, with shredded cheese and salsa for garnish). One of the kids' friends, a nice tow-headed 4-year old named Austin, came bounding up to our street-facing kitchen window on a scooter (the window was formerly a side door, so the sidewalk allows easy access).

Austin: "Can they come out to play?"

Me: "We're having dinner, Austin. After that, they can come out."

Austin: "How long will that take?"

Me (forgetting that preschoolers have no concept of time): "About ten minutes."

Austin: "OK." [Scooters away.]

Forty five seconds later.

A disembodied yellow head reappears even closer to the window.

"Are they done yet?"

"No, not yet. A few more minutes, Austin."

"OK." [Trundles off.]

Thirty seconds later.

"Can they come out yet?"

"Not quite done, Austin."

"OK."

To Heather: "Should I grab a mask and hide under the window sill?"

The punchline? After the kids came out, Austin revealed that he didn't have permission to come over in the first place.


This morning: The McToddler Group at the breakfast table.

The roundtable participants are discussing Sleeping Beauty.

Madeleine: "Maleficent is mean."

Rachel: "No, Maleficent is not mean, she's evil!"

Madeleine: "Rachel, Maleficent is mean."

Rachel: "NO! EVIL!"

Malthusians from Apathetic, Dying Continent Worry About American Population Growth.

Just another offering from our helpful Truth In Headlining Service here at DM.

What's especially amusing about the tsk-tsking at the Independent is the portrayal of America as a black hole, with nothing being produced in return.

On a related note, here is a handy essay noting that British emigration to America has been growing in recent years. [For those of you not inclined to kvetch about the freely-available Adobe Reader format, look here.]

Walking over history.

This has been just about the perfect Michigan autumn: temperatures in the sixties, and a surfeit of days filled with a bright, crystalline sunshine that never fails to fill me with a longing for something I can never quite express. It is joy, contentment and a sense of home, wound together with the realization that it is going to pass, all the while whispering that it should not pass, that something is looming. As I said, it is something that evades and taunts mere words. But it is the reason that I have always found Michigan autumns to be truly blessed times of year.

We took advantage of one of these ideal days yesterday, and went for a walk in Clinton Township's Canal Park.

Canal?

Yes, canal. Here and there throughout Macomb and eastern Oakland County you can see the slowly-eroding remnants of what can only be called "Mason's Folly." The project was inaugurated with fanfare worthy of a coronation as "the Clinton and Kalamazoo Canal" in 1838.

The brainchild of Michigan's first governor, the 26-year old Stevens T. Mason, it was a deliberate attempt to emulate the great success of the immortal Erie Canal of New York, which had turned such cities as Rochester and Buffalo into boom towns.

The idea was to utilize the existing rivers and dig a series of canals and locks across the entire Lower Peninsula from Mount Clemens to Lake Michigan, a distance of 216 miles all told.

Unfortunately, the State underestimated the cost of the project and the holding company went bankrupt in 1843. Only fifteen of those planned 216 miles were ever completed, with the canal petering out in the vicinity of the Oakland County suburb of Rochester, and the project was officially abandoned in 1848. Even the completed sections were an economic failure, as toll revenue was far below estimates. The reason? The canal was too small for the larger barges that made the Erie such a success.

Great photographs are accessible here, via the Shelby Township Historical Society.

Canal Park has the remnants of a dam from the early 1840s which was used to channel water from the Clinton river, and some of the timber bracing still stands above water. You can also see the base of the dam, too. The remains of a lock are also visible, now seen as a steep ditch slowly being pinched by the encroaching second growth forest.

As Heather noted, nature has a way of reclaiming her own. Canal Park proves it. Definitely worth a stop, as is Yates Cider Mill, which has an attached park that preserves the remnants of a canal aqueduct.

Is that anything like fantasy football?

Going to take a break from the auto da fe of the Bronx Bombers for a little while. I keep it up, and Rich Leonardi's going to drop the "dissentient" tag on me, so...

On entirely unrelated news, the St. Blog's S.M. Stirling Cult has roped in another devotee, Theocoid at This Space Intentionally Left Blank, wherein he refers to OFA as a "fantasy crack dealer."

Oh, and while I'm flattered that Theo thinks he detected my "fingerprints," please remember that the author writes, I make recommendations and that's that. "Fingerprints" is rather an overstatement.

I'll be posting my own review this week, and discussion will abound.

Bondermania!

Two straight nights of pitchers exorcising demons and answering serious questions about their ability to be aces.

After the humiliations of the past generation, man, does this feel good. I don't think I've ever been as uninvolved in a Michigan-MSU tilt in my entire life. Yeah, I watched chunks of it, but seeing the Tigers play dragonslayer was something I'll always remember.

On to Mickey's in Lake Orion!

[Photos via the Detroit News.]

Go easy on the Yankees: $200 million doesn't buy what it used to.

Fun fact: the Yanks have spent $1 biiiiiiiillllllion dollars since their last World Series title.

Oh, and one more--just photoshop in "2006 ALDS":

I wouldn't care to be Brian Cashman this evening.

Coincidence?

Compare this date in history: 1571 with 2001.

Given how calendar-centric our foes are, I doubt it. In fact, I think it was a message sent in a way that the grievance-nursing could easily understand.

I'll refrain from posting the poem again this year (it's here, and worth a read, though) and just load an image instead:

Happy memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary!

"I have never have cared for the Yankees, and for a very sound reason: The Yankees are evil."

Thank you, Dave Barry.

Even if the Tigs don't pull out the series, it was sure nice seeing them beat Team $teinbrenner at Stade Fasciste. It's a true delight to hear that crowd that quiet.

Not so BTW, I reached my Tim McCarver Saturation Point sometime during the middle of the second inning of Game 1. Oy.

I've never thought of this blog as an academic resource...

...but what the hey? Glad to help, Leigh! If you have any other questions, I or the other half-crazed Byzantinophiles who hang about here (Richard, Cacciaguida [I think]) would be happy to offer up our two hyperpyra.

There aren't words for the tragedy Patrick Coffin and his wife have gone through.

But prayers and good wishes for them all, including little Naomi, would be very welcome, I am sure.

Why educate at home?

Heather has spelled her thought process over here.

My decision doesn't focus per se on any quality problems with public education. I've known too many public educators to doubt their dedication and ability across the board. Mine is a little simpler, and can be summed up in one word: Sewage.

As in American Culture, Anno Domini 2006.

The center is not holding. Not by a damn sight. In fact, to continue the military metaphor, our exposed flank has been hit and we are reeling in a retreat that is threatening to turn into a rout.

We can raise our own children. We can instill virtues in them, limit access to the unblinking eye, dress them appropriately, refuse to buy them appalling products available in a bewildering variety and so forth.

But I can't act in loco parentis for everybody else.

Consider, for example, the moral absentee parents who buy their pre-teen daughters pants with "Juicy" stenciled on the rear, or "Bitch" emblazoned on the front (were to God I was making this up). The so-called adults who let their sons blare the gangsta rap from the speakers of the family car.

Most memorable in my mind was the case of the woman living four houses down from us who was arrested a couple of months ago for disorderly conduct on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. During the arrest, she was defended by pre-teen sons who screamed "motherf**ker" at the police. It was like watching an episode of Cops unfold, only without the spiritual uplift.

[The authorities were, not so BTW, far too indulgent of the belligerent offender and should have maced her five minutes earlier.]

Maybe it's just our neighborhood? It's not the brick ranch ideal, to be sure, but we have a local police officer and his family kitty-corner from us, and it is safe to leave stuff unattended in your yard. Not ideal, but far from the worst.

And I'll even go so far as to say that the parents who enable this behavior are not at their roots evil-minded. For some reason, they have lost the ability or the will to make moral judgments or hard/unpopular decisions. Trodding the well-worn path of least resistance, they shrug and give in. Which is the last thing their children need, or, deep down, really want.

But lack of ill-intent does not change the fact that the culture is falling to the lowest common denominator. Peer pressure is a ratchet, and it does not click upwards. I can't send my children into that maelstrom. I won't. As Greg Krehbiel put it, I don't want my kids socialized by kids who have been socialized by the television set.

Yes, I do have concerns about home education: quality, the pressure on us both time and ability-wise (we're both liberal arts to the hilt), loss of positive socialization, etc. But that's outweighed by the fear of losing my kids' hearts and minds. It's not worth the risk.