Sunday, Sweet Sunday...

National Offend a Feminist Week

My title is a line from "Flower Drum Song." Stacy McCain of "The Other McCain" blog has declared this "National Offend a Feminist" Week. I like the concept. He says the song "I Enjoy Being a Girl" by Nancy Kwan is the anthem for this special week. Heck, I ran that video months ago, not to offend feminists but merely because I love the song...and Nancy Kwan. And if that fact doesn't offend a feminist, then there's just no offending them.

F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom"

It took me a couple of weeks and a fistfull of cigars, but I finally finished reading Hayek's classic tome in defense of free markets. It's not an easy or fast read. However, I didn't just read it, I studied it, highlighting key points. There is so much that is quotable. Here's one I picked out at random:

It is true that the virtures which are less esteemed and practiced now--independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one's own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one's neighbors--are essentially those on which the working of an individualist society rests.

This was written in 1944. When I think of the Tea Parties of today I can see a lot of Hayek's "individualist society" is alive and well, though fighting for its life, i.e. backing its "own conviction against a majority."

Hayek's book, in a nutshell, says that collectivism or socialism doesn't work; that when central planners begin to realize that there are many unexpected factors and forces popping out to derail their schemes, they will seek even more power to exercise ever greater control of society, until at last the central planning of socialism ends in totalitarianism and tyranny. And on top of that, the great majority is poor. Bummer. There's much in this book that applies to the current economic downturn and the rise of Obamunistic Socialism.

Eating Sushi

I had to work again yesterday. Now I'm pooped. When I came home my wife took me out to eat sushi at a great Japanese restaurant. I tried the sea urchin but my wife, who is Asian, wouldn't touch it. It was pretty good, but you have to be careful not to swallow all those little purple spines. Just kidding -- you eat the inside of the urchin, not the outside. We asked for a side order of poisonous blowfish but the proprietor wouldn't serve it. Ha! The next thing you know he will tell us we can't practice Hara-Kiri. Too late, the nation already did that last November.