Painting that inspired iconic Christmas card is found hanging in pensioner's home.
Nick Carnow is a director at auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh, where the 20in by 31in painting will be sold on Wednesday. He said: 'Farquharson had a long career but paintings by him of this quality are rare.'
It is thought that Farquharson, who died in 1935 aged 88, exhibited the painting at the Royal Academy in 1901. Its subsequent history is unknown until the current owner bought it from art dealer Richard Green of Bond Street 40 years ago.
The card company WN Sharpe bought the rights to the picture more than 30 years ago. It has since been bought out by Hallmark Cards, which now has the rights.
Jo Marchbank, of Hallmark Cards, said: 'This painting is one of our most popular Christmas cards.
'It is probably something to do with the unique atmosphere Farquharson creates, the dramatic yet subtle depiction of a winter landscape.'
"There are two kinds of people, those that allow reality and experience to define and constantly modify their ideas and those who insist that their ideas define reality. The first kind make things work. The second type (be they right wing creationists, or progressive purists) stand on the sidelines wringing their hands and criticizing the doers for their "heresy," because doing anything in the real world always equals compromise, learning and change." - Frank Schaeffer
"A painting which has been reproduced for one of the most popular Christmas card designs is to be sold at auction.
Scottish artist Joseph Farquharson painted Sheep Beneath Snow Encumbered Branches more than 100 years ago.
Jo Marchbank, of Hallmark Cards, said the picture, of sheep in a snowy field under a setting sun, was one of the company's most popular Christmas cards.
It will be auctioned by Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh on Wednesday and has been valued at £70,000.
Ms Marchbank said Farquharson created a "unique atmosphere" in his paintings.
"The dramatic yet subtle depiction of a winter landscape with a beautiful light bathing the scene from a setting sun," she said.
Farquharson, who was laird of a 20,000-acre Aberdeenshire estate, died in 1935 - aged 88.
It is thought he exhibited the painting at the Royal Academy in 1901.
The current owner bought it 40 years ago for £1,450.
It has been a popular Christmas card for about 30 years."
I wish I could buy this painting. It is called 'The shortening winter's day is near a close' and was painted in 1903! You would think the BBC would do a little better covering this sale and go into some detail about it! It's worth a great deal more than a summer house to me but I have no money to buy art! I have a webpage devoted to Joseph Farquharson that gets a zillion hits a month. Check it out! The unusual titles of many of Farquharson's paintings stand out and are sometimes long. Research shows that many of them were taken from poems by Burns, Milton, Shakespeare and Gray. Farquharson was very patriotic and well versed in Scottish literature. He was elected ARA 1890, RA 1915 and in addition to exhibiting over 200 works at the RA he showed 73 at the RSA and 181 at the Fine Art Society. Among many other exhibits at the RCA, GI, and the Tate AG. The renowned artist-critic, Sickert made Farquharson the subject of an essay comparing him with Courbet and preferring Farquharson. He extolled Farquharson's tension and realism and criticized the pretension of his polar opposites, the Bloomsbury Group, whose writ he said "fortunately does not run in the North of Scotland". The remarkable realism of Farquharson’s work can be attributed to his desire to work in "plein air". This had to be carried out in a unique way which was adapted to the harsh Scottish climate. Farquharson had constructed a painting hut on wheels, complete with a stove and large glass window for observing the landscape. Likewise to achieve as realistic a result as possible when painting the sheep which frequently appear in his snowscapes, he used a flock of "imitation" sheep which could be placed as required in the landscape of his choice. Farquharson painted so many scenes of cattle and sheep in snow he was even nicknamed ‘Frozen Mutton Farquharson’. I also made the wikipedia page about Farquharson although its been messed with allot since I put it up.
Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent. I try not to put up any decorations or pay much attention to Christmas until now. It's fun to build up to Christmas slowly. Advent is the beginning of the Church Year for most churches in the Western tradition. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, which is the Sunday nearest November 30, and ends on Christmas Eve (Dec 24). If Christmas Eve is a Sunday, it is counted as the fourth Sunday of Advent, with Christmas Eve proper beginning at sundown. Most churches and some households light a candle for each sunday and have them in a circle called an advent wreath. I don't recall this practice in the Presbyterian Church being common before the 70s but I like it.
I have been updating my Christmas Carols webpages. I used to have midis on them. I made the change to videos this year to go along with the words and some history and illustrations. Some of the Carols I have there are unusual ones. Most of them are my favorites but I plan to add more with time. I made one video just to embed because I could not find a version on YouTube. I think the way the pages are now is allot better.
This nation is sick. This "black Friday" shopping thing is so materialistic and nasty! Look at this horrible tragedy now caused by this cattle like behavior! A worker died after being trampled by a throng of unruly shoppers when a suburban Wal-Mart in Nassau County, N.Y. opened for the holiday sales rush Friday, authorities said. At least three other people were injured. A police statement said shortly after 5 a.m., a throng of shoppers "physically broke down the doors, knocking (the worker) to the ground." Police also said a 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries and were also taken to hospitals. And to think all for Christmas gifts???? What would Jesus say about this? I want to cry!
Update on this story:
Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.
Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.
Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.
This kind of turkey is conceived through artificial insemination and bred to produce excessive amounts of white breast meat. These birds die young if you leave them live out their lives they are freaks of nature created by man for the table. They simply get so heavy they break down. If you want to see a nice healthy turkey get a Bronze or Bourbon Red turkey that is smaller and healthier and now a rare breed. Let's get rid of these sad over-sized white birds who have such a sorry existence? After all we have a white turkey in the White House and he is dumber than a white domestic turkey and he has bad taste!
Bourbon Red Turkey
These old breeds of Turkey are in danger of disapearing from the countryside forever. Let's get Obama to pardon a nice Bronze Turkey next year?! They are wonderful eating too. I had a neighbor raise me one. http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/turkeys/bronze/index.htm
Ask the man in the street to name his top three physicists of all time and he might - like me - be struggling.
It is easy enough to come up with Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton but many of us might then have to start playing for time.
My Italian ancestry would make me inclined to throw the name of Galileo Galilei into the ring.
However, much closer to home comes a less-heralded contender for a place in the top trio of physics.
The name James Clerk Maxwell provokes more blank stares than it should.
However, in scientific circles his achievements stand comfortably beside any other greats of the field.
Greatest physicists
Four years ago - you could be forgiven if you missed it - his theory of electromagnetism was voted the joint-top equation of all time.
Prior to that he landed third spot in a poll of the greatest physicists of all time.
James Clerk Maxwell's work led to the development of the telephone and television
Now he has been recognised by the unveiling of the first statue to be put up in Edinburgh's George Street for almost a century.
A passer-by might well ask what the former Edinburgh Academy and University of Edinburgh student did to deserve such an honour.
They would not have to look far to receive an answer.
The mobile phone, satellite communications, television and radio were all made possible by his work.
By anybody's reckoning that is an impressive list.
As Albert Einstein put it: "One scientific epoch ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell."
Born in Edinburgh in 1831, Clerk Maxwell's family moved to Glenlair near Corsock in Galloway when he was a child.
He returned to Edinburgh for much of his education before heading to the University of Cambridge. James Clerk Maxwell's work paved the way for many modern inventions
He was later elected to the Royal Society and occupied a role as professor of natural philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and then King's College, London.
However, by 1865 he retired to the family estate in Dumfries and Galloway where he spent most of his days until his death, aged 48, in 1879.
He is buried at Parton graveyard close to his long-time home.
According to past president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Sir Michael Atiyah, his lifetime achievements deserve to be honoured with the new statue.
"It is quite remarkable that there is not more recognition of James Clerk Maxwell in either the public consciousness of great scientists or, indeed, until now in the shape of a permanent monument in his home city," he said.
One of those issues has been addressed with the unveiling of a statue produced by Paisley-born sculptor Alexander Stoddart.
Increasing public awareness of Clerk Maxwell's importance, however, may take a little longer to achieve.
The auld yowe lay as I gaed by, Speldert on the saun, She didnae rise an rin awa, She widnae even staun.
Tentless o man an win an rain, Fou laich on the river bank, Frae oot her auld black grizzlt heid Her een stared dim an blank.
Her droukit fleece ris up an doun Wi shalla souchin braith, An I thocht the puir forfochen beast Wis gey near untae daith.
Syne my hert gied a lift whan I luikit back An saw her on her feet, - Awa ye go, ye daft auld yowe, An hae a bite tae eat!
- But gin anither oor had passed, My grief I scarce cuid hide, Whan I fand the auld beast stiff an cauld, Cowpt ower on her side.
Alane she de'ed by the watter's edge, Founert wi June's fell rains, An niver a blink o simmer sun Tae warm her tired banes.
The auld yowe nou bereft o life Lay sprauchlt on the grun, Her edders fou o mither's milk, Tho her mither's wark wis dune -
- For oot on the holm, twa hafflin lambs Thegither crappt the grass, Wi ne'er a thocht in their wee horned heids On whit had come tae pass.
by Dr James A Begg
speldert/stretched out laich/low droukit/soaked souchin/sighing forfochen/exhausted founert/chilled to the bone sprauchlt/sprawled edders/udders hafflin/half-grown
A. Brian Wall (1861-1935) Shepherd and Sheep in Winter Landscape, n.d.
Alfred Bryan Wall, the son of painter Alfred S. Wall and the nephew of William Coventry Wall, spent most his life in Pittsburgh. When he resided for a short time in Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century, he became friends with Eakins, who painted his portrait. He is best known for his autumnal animalscapes of sheep, a subject he regularly portrayed from the 1880s on. Imbued with the spirit of the French Barbizon painters, the flocks that graze peacefully in his pastoral Shepherd and Sheep in Winter Landscape suggest a pre-modern sensibility. His father had served for a short time on the original board of the Carnegie Museum, and at his death, A. Bryan Wall succeeded him.
I am finding such good stuff these days. Here is another Christian who is not a right wing wacko! He loves art and culture as do I and I really like the way this Blog is laid out. I have hope we will again see some restraint in this country and see politics and religion maintain a healthy distance once more.
It's snowing like mad again. They say we may get some serious Lake Effect snow today and tonight. Lake-effect snow is produced in the winter when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, providing energy and picking up water vapor which freezes and is deposited on the lee shores. The effect is enhanced when the moving air mass is uplifted by the orographic effect of higher elevations on the downwind shores. This uplifting can produce narrow, but very intense bands of precipitation, which deposit at a rate of many inches of snow each hour and often bringing copious snowfall totals. The areas affected by lake-effect snow are called snowbelts. This effect occurs in many locations throughout the world, but is best known in the populated areas of the Great Lakes of North America. We live close to Lake Eire so we feel this effect frequently and often get more than Buffalo. Buffalo makes the news because its a major urban center. They don't pay much attention to us in Chautauqua County because the population is low in comparison. For more on this see the Channel 4 Buffalo weather Blog. http://buffaloweatherblog.blogspot.com/
Wow we are so snowed in, it is amazing. Our road is very very snow clogged and dangerous tonight. I guess the snowplow guys were not ready for this on a weekend.
Today was the first day of deer season here in NY. There should be lots of noise around me all week. We don't hunt because we have all the lamb we need in the back yard. Lamb is better and I can pick when I need it in the freezer. Its always there when I get low on red meat.
It will take years to fully grasp the tsunami that swept Barrack Obama into the presidency. "It's the first time" or "not since" or "historic" have punctuated most coverage of it -- even President Bush called it "awesome." It reconfigured electoral politics and created "never before seen" voting blocs. One new and powerful wave of support for Obama came from the most surprising of groups: evangelicals.
Incredible as it sounds, exit polls show that the number of white evangelicals (ages 18-44), the base of the Republican party, supported Obama in double the numbers that came out for John Kerry in 2004. (Even Catholics were more enthusiastic about protestant Obama than they were for Catholic Kerry -- Obama won the majority, 54%, of Catholic voters; Kerry got 47%.) Nationally, 25% of white evangelicals voted for Obama. In certain key states, the numbers were higher. He saw a 14% increase in support from white evangelicals in crucial states like Colorado, 8% in Indiana, 8% in North Carolina and 4% in Ohio. Most important, he won 32% of young evangelicals (doubling the 16% for McCain).
The surge of evangelical support for Obama reflects stunning changes among voters who have traditionally voted for the most right-wing of Republicans. Democratic strategists should hear this message loud and clear: many morality voters have party-hopped. Are these culture warriors laying down their swords? The 2008 election may mark the moment religious voters put reason above rhetoric. The birth of the Obamagelical.
Clearly Obama's inclusive approach resonated with many evangelical voters--but to only credit the candidate is to miss the bigger story. According to a poll taken by Beliefnet.com, Obamagelicals believe the Democratic party platform holds the greatest potential for progress on the most intransigent issues. Take, for example, abortion. Of evangelicals who voted for Obama only 8% believed that restricting abortion would lead to reductions in the abortion rate (61% of evangelicals for McCain did). A whopping 86% of Obamagelicals believe that instead "the best way to reduce abortion is by preventing unintended pregnancy (through education and birth control), or providing financial assistance to pregnant mothers." This is in direct opposition to the "pro-life" agenda, which seeks to ban many forms of contraception along with abortion.
Obamagelicals have re-priortized what they consider the critical issues our nation must address. For McCain's evangelical supporters, abortion is their top issue; 65% select it as one of the most important issues of the election. Only 10% of Obamagelicals think this. Most list, in order of importance, the economy, Iraq war, reducing poverty, character of the candidate, the environment, cleaning up government, access to healthcare as the more critical issues facing our country. For McCain's evangelical voters abortion is the number one issue facing our country, and "reducing poverty" weighs in at #13 in importance. That 75% of women having abortion list financial reasons as the basis of their decision doesn't click for McCain's evangelicals. For Obamagelicals it apparently does.
As the Washington Post reported, It could be we're at a tipping point in this culture," said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "Ignoring the obvious will not help."
President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats have promised to work to make abortion rare, so long as it remains legal. "Maybe it's time to take them up on the offer" instead of "bashing our heads over and over again against the same wall," writes Paul Strand, a blogger for the Christian Broadcasting Network.
The Rev. Joel Hunter, an influential megachurch pastor in Florida, sees a new willingness among pro-life activists to cooperate with pro-choice forces in search of a middle ground. He traces that openness in part to the flourishing of crisis pregnancy centers. As volunteers meet women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, they begin to view abortion less as an absolute evil and more as a practical challenge: How do we get this single mother a job, or help that college student with child care so she doesn't feel as though abortion is her only option?"
No less than a third of white evangelicals under 30 favored Obama. These young evangelicals come to long intransigent issues like abortion with a fresh, results-oriented approach, and for the Republican party and the pro-life movement as a whole, this is bad news. Prevention of unwanted pregnancy was important enough to make it into the Democratic party platform this year (and previous ones). That platform states: The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to affordable family planning services and comprehensive age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.
The Republican platform is silent on the subject pregnancy prevention. It has no strategy to prevent unintended pregnancy, only to ban abortion. There is not one "pro-life" organization in the United States that supports contraception, though it's the only proven way to reduce the need for abortion.
Now young evangelicals appear to be turning away from the monolithic fights of their elders. They support prevention because it delivers the results they seek. Bill Clinton, the nation's first pro-choice president, inherited high abortion rates from the previous two "pro-life" Presidents, Reagan and Bush (Sr.). Clinton presided over the most dramatic decline in abortion rates in the recorded history of our country. He backed prevention and financial support for the most at risk; the pro-choice approach. Banning abortion, the "pro-life" movement's approach, has little effect on its prevalence, study after study shows. The countries with the highest abortion rates in the world are those that have already adopted our Republican party's platform and banned abortion. This includes most of Latin America where abortion rates are equal to the US and in several countries twice as high.
Conversely, the strategy Obama promises to implement is what has proven to work in the countries where abortion is most rare. These countries, like the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, have adopted the strongest pro-choice policies--abortion is legal, often free, contraception is widely available and abstinence-only education exists only as an oxymoron.
Obamagelicals have moved beyond the righteous rhetoric and political hyperbole to focus a wider array of issues that impact rates of abortion, like poverty, education and prevention. They may be the common ground movement pro-choice people have long been praying for.
Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody gives a thumbs up to recognize her father, retired Brig. General Harold H. Dunwoody
The U.S. Army promoted the first female to four-star general in its history Friday in an emotion-laden ceremony that sparked hopes among women that the role for female troops will continue to expand.
Gen. Ann Dunwoody's elevation to the pinnacle of the officer corps was the culmination of a protracted fight by women. The military named its first female one-star in 1970, the first two-star in 1978 and the first three-star in 1996.
Women currently are not allowed to serve in ground combat, limiting their command options and roles in wartime. Instead, women have risen through the military ranks through career paths like nursing, intelligence and logistics.
Dunwoody's standing-room-only ceremony in the Pentagon auditorium drew the military's highest ranked officers. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, presided, and three-star generals had to stand in the back because all the seats were taken.
After Dunwoody's husband, Ret. Air Force Col. Craig Brotchie, and Casey pinned four stars on each shoulder of her uniform, women soldiers throughout the crowd cheered, some as they wiped tears of joy.
Dunwoody, 55, said she was humbled and overwhelmed by the distinction.
"When people ask me, Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, say nothing about a four-star, I say not in my wildest dreams," she said.
She later quipped: "There is no one more surprised than I - except my husband. And you know what they say: Behind every successful woman is an astonished man."
Casey acknowledged that the naming of the military's first female four-star general took "probably longer than it should have," but he called Friday's promotion something the "entire Army can celebrate and take pride in."
Afterward at Fort Belvoir, Va., the base where she was born, Dunwoody was sworn in as commander of the Army Materiel Command, which equips and outfits soldiers.
A member of Dunwoody's family has served in every American war since the Revolution. Her 89-year-old father, Ret. Brig. General Harold H. Dunwoody, served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and earned two Purple Hearts. Her niece just returned from a tour in Afghanistan as an Air Force pilot. And her brother-in-law was an Air Force veteran. All were at Friday's ceremony.
Not eligible to attend the then all male U.S. Military Academy like her brothers, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Dunwoody graduated from the State University of New York and was commissioned into the Women's Army Corps in 1975.
An Army study at the time found that both men and women in the military agreed the best role for a female soldier was as a cook, Casey told the audience.
But Dunwoody's 33-year Army career was peppered with military firsts. She was the first woman to command a battalion in the 82nd Airborne Division. She was also the first woman general officer at Fort Bragg. And she was among the Army's first female three-star generals.
The Senate confirmed her four-star rank in July.
There are currently 21 female general officers in the Army and nearly 60 throughout the military. And Dunwoody said that while she was the first, she will not be the last female four-star general.
The The Doerfels were playing at the Vesper service again tonight in Chautauqua. They are amazing. They do Gospel Blue Grass and some jazz. The link above goes to a video of them playing recently in Canada! Here is the link to their My Space page: http://web.mac.com/tjdoerfel/DFB/Welcome.html
This Thanksgiving song originally appeared as a poem written by Lydia Maria Child in Flowers for Children, volume 2, in 1844. Lydia Maria Child was a novelist, journalist, teacher, and wrote extensively about the need to eliminate slavery!!!!
Over the river, and through the wood, To Grandmother's house we go; The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood - Oh, how the wind does blow! It stings the toes and bites the nose As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood, To have a first-rate play. Hear the bells ring, "Ting-a-ling-ding", Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood Trot fast, my dapple-gray! Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound, For this is Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood - And straight through the barnyard gate, We seem to go extremely slow, It is so hard to wait!
Over the river, and through the wood - Now Grandmother's cap I spy! Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!
It's been the most wonderful time here. Its been sunny and warm for days. I stacked 5 face cords of wood today. What a gift it has been to have this second patch of Indian Summer! Several Days it hit 70F!
Joe Lieberman you should slink off into the shadows you turncoat. How could you indorse MacCain and expect to keep the job of chairman of the powerful Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. UGH what a worm you are! How could any Democrat not have hard feelings over his speech at the Republican National Convention! He makes my skin crawl!
It looks like all the Republicans are sore, even Barney the president's Scottish Terrier. I think he is miffed Obama won. It's clear all republicans are bad loosers even their dogs.
My County here in NY only went for Obama by 400 votes so I am so glad my husband made it back to vote. He was in Maryland visiting friends. I am so drained. I am glad this is all over. I will be so happy not have to listen to Bush and his bad grammar much longer!
We are in a better place now! I have not been so happy in a long, long time. I am so glad McCain conceded because I would not be able to sleep thinking about some hanging chad out there in the gloom waiting to bring me down on the morrow!
Obama ahead by 8 points; unusual turnout could boost that several points Has 291 electoral votes, 21 more than needed, three states with 50 votes leaning his way
Maybe the polls are wrong, and John McCain is about to pull off the biggest election upset in American history. But right now the Democrats seem poised both to win the White House and to greatly expand their majorities in both houses of Congress.
Most of the post-election discussion will presumably be about what the Democrats should and will do with their mandate. But let me ask a different question that will also be important for the nation’s future: What will defeat do to the Republicans?
You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.
Instead, the Republican rump, the party that’s left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palin’s rallies, where crowds chant “Vote McCain, not Hussein!” It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting.” It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama’s Marxist — or was that Islamic? — roots.
Why will the G.O.P. become more, not less, extreme? For one thing, projections suggest that this election will drive many of the remaining Republican moderates out of Congress, while leaving the hard right in place.
For example, Larry Sabato, the election forecaster, predicts that seven Senate seats currently held by Republicans will go Democratic on Tuesday. According to the liberal-conservative rankings of the political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, five of the soon-to-be-gone senators are more moderate than the median Republican senator — so the rump, the G.O.P. caucus that remains, will have shifted further to the right. The same thing seems set to happen in the House.
Also, the Republican base already seems to be gearing up to regard defeat not as a verdict on conservative policies, but as the result of an evil conspiracy. A recent Democracy Corps poll found that Republicans, by a margin of more than two to one, believe that Mr. McCain is losing “because the mainstream media is biased” rather than “because Americans are tired of George Bush.”
And Mr. McCain has laid the groundwork for feverish claims that the election was stolen, declaring that the community activist group Acorn — which, as Factcheck.org points out, has never “been found guilty of, or even charged with” causing fraudulent votes to be cast — “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” Needless to say, the potential voters Acorn tries to register are disproportionately “other folks,” as Mr. Chambliss might put it.
Anyway, the Republican base, egged on by the McCain-Palin campaign, thinks that elections should reflect the views of “real Americans” — and most of the people reading this column probably don’t qualify.
Thus, in the face of polls suggesting that Mr. Obama will win Virginia, a top McCain aide declared that the “real Virginia” — the southern part of the state, excluding the Washington, D.C., suburbs — favors Mr. McCain. A majority of Americans now live in big metropolitan areas, but while visiting a small town in North Carolina, Ms. Palin described it as “what I call the real America,” one of the “pro-America” parts of the nation. The real America, it seems, is small-town, mainly southern and, above all, white.
I’m not saying that the G.O.P. is about to become irrelevant. Republicans will still be in a position to block some Democratic initiatives, especially if the Democrats fail to achieve a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
And that blocking ability will ensure that the G.O.P. continues to receive plenty of corporate dollars: this year the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has poured money into the campaigns of Senate Republicans like Minnesota’s Norm Coleman, precisely in the hope of denying Democrats a majority large enough to pass pro-labor legislation.
But the G.O.P.’s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.
This will pose a dilemma for moderate conservatives. Many of them spent the Bush years in denial, closing their eyes to the administration’s dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law. Some of them have tried to maintain that denial through this year’s election season, even as the McCain-Palin campaign’s tactics have grown ever uglier. But one of these days they’re going to have to realize that the G.O.P. has become the party of intolerance.
After the Moon sets – around 11 p.m. local time on Nov. 5, later on subsequent nights – some 10 to 15 meteors may appear per hour. They are often yellowish-orange and, as meteors go, appear to move rather slowly. Their name comes from the way they seem to radiate from the constellation Taurus, the Bull, which sits low in the east a couple of hours after sundown and is almost directly overhead by around 1:30 a.m. Because of their occurrence in late October and early November, they are also called Halloween fireballs.
Sarah Palin unwittingly took a prank call Saturday from a Canadian comedian posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and telling her she would make a good president someday.
These words were composed by Spencer the Rover Who had travelled Great Britain and most parts of Wales He had been so reduced which caused great confusion And that was the reason he went on the roam.
In Yorkshire near Rotherham he had been on his rambles Being weary of travelling he sat down to rest At the foot of yonder mountain there runs a clear fountain With bread and cold water he himself did refresh.
It tasted more sweeter than the gold he had wasted More sweeter than honey and gave more content But the thoughts of his babies lamenting their father Brought tears to his eyes and caused him to lament.
The night fast approaching to the woods he resorted With woodbine and ivy his bed for to make There he dreamt about sighing lamenting and crying To home to your family and rambling forsake.
On the fifth of November I've a reason to remember When first he arrived home to his family and wife They stood so surprised when first he arrived To see such a stranger once more in their sight.
His children came around him with their prittle-prattling stories With their prittle-prattling stories to drive care away Now they are united like birds of one feather Like bees in one hive contented they'll stay.
So now he is a-living in his cottage contented With woodbine and roses growing all around the door He's as happy as those that's got thousands of riches Contented he'll stay and go rambling no more.
See also the version collected by Bob Copper from Jim Barrett in Hampshire, around 1954.
I will be putting the ewes in with the ram this week. Murdo is more than ready. I think he has been ready since August. The tup is in good rig and really keyed up.
