Gazing out over his domain on Father's Day last Sunday, with Camelot-by-the-Sea behind and the pool and the river's mouth before him, Goomp enjoys the freedom to pursue happiness made possible by The Age of Abundance.
"Your photographs [of an all-American backyard barbeque] paint a picture of freedom in America as pointed out by Brink Lindsey in his The Age of Abundance," writes Goomp in the comments to our previous post, referring to the argument of one of the books we gave him for Father's Day:
When the 20th century began such gatherings to enjoy were limited to the wealthy. Most people had neither the time away from work nor the financial means to enjoy such pleasures.
"In addition, Sissy is the Norman Rockwell of our time, capturing the magic moments of American freedom," says our sis with a straight face, declaring "I can never say enough about your 'eye.'" That would be the thing we often humorously refer to as a "good eye" for beauty in unexpected places. Then there's Rockwell's "good eye." As we wrote awhile back re the artist's "The Four Freedoms" series inspired by FDR's rousing wartime State of the Union address in 1941:
We remember having reproductions of the illustrations hanging on the walls of our grade-school classrooms in the fifties and thinking even then they seemed quaintly old-fashioned. In today's world, again at war with those who would stomp on our freedoms, we see them with fresh eyes. Because Rockwell's subject matter was usually on the corny side, serious art critics tended to look down upon the artist's accomplishment, but beyond the anecdotal component -- much loved by the average American -- his compositional and painterly skills were quite remarkable.
Speaking of fresh eyes, "Do you remember 9/11? How you felt? The moral clarity of that day and the days thereafter?" asked Charles Krauthammer rhetorically a couple of years back, reflecting on the willful, all-too-human forgetfulness on the part of some of our fellow Americans regarding what they saw that day:
Just days after 9/11, on this very page, Lance Morrow wrote a brilliant, searing affirmation of right against wrong, good against evil.
A few years of that near papal certainty is more than any self-respecting intelligentsia can take. The overwhelmingly secular intellectuals are embarrassed that they once nodded in assent to Morrow-like certainty, an affront to their self-flattering pose as skeptics.
Good vs evil is too corny, too quaintly old-fashioned to satisfy some people's blindly self-destructive narcissism.
another breath of fresh air...
wonderful.
yes, i agree with Goomp and your fine Sis.
talented in a special way.
narcissism is running for office again, and it is concerning to see if it will be elected one more time in 2008.
but freedom seems to be winning in Iraq, slowly but surely, with a lot of resolve.
Posted by: hnav | June 25, 2007 at 10:12 AM
As you point out, those who suffer from what Dr. Sanity describes as a psychological inability to see that some cultures are demented are doomed to destuction if their views are the dominant ones of our society. Fortunately there seems to be a slowly growing understanding in the Arab-Muslim world that the view that the hatred of Christians, Jews and other Muslims who do not advocte jihad is not the answer. Maybe the psychologically handicapped "all cultures are the same" intellectuals in the West will also have a reality awakening.
Posted by: goomp | June 25, 2007 at 12:49 PM
A belated happy Father's Day goomp! You are a delight to many more than just your family.
Yes, I'm finally healthy enough to hop on the computer from time to time. Moving plus a head/chest cold is a really nasty combo! Morphed into walking pneumonia and a sinus infection.
The cats and my sister's two dogs nursed me through it!
Posted by: Gayle Miller | June 28, 2007 at 03:40 PM