The Buckley Panel

James writes:

How could I not mention a post by Daniel McCarthy at Tory Anarchist that states: "I think there's more to be said for Panero's view than I allowed at the time." Alas, I hear this refrain all too often.

McCarthy's comments comes out of a panel discussion I took part in last February on "The Enduring Legacy of William F. Buckley Jr," sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The venue was the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington and my co-panelists were McCarthy of The American Conservative and Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard. The audio of the conference is now available below, and ISI has also posted a video at its website.

In the years after God and Man at Yale and McCarthy and His Enemies, both influenced by Willmoore Kendall, Buckley lavished a great deal of his energies on his more non-political pursuits. My desire at the conference was to take into account Buckley's novels and memoirs, along with his passions for sailing, skiing, and music, in understanding his legacy. Admittedly, my understanding of Buckley starts at the end of his life and looks back in. For our panel discussion, Daniel McCarthy began with the philosophy that informed the young Buckley and carried it forward. Both points of view are relevant. So allow me return the compliment above with my own observation: there's more to be said for Daniel McCarthy's view than that I allowed at the time.

Thank you, WFB

Dara writes:

Today, which marks the passing of William F. Buckley Jr., is a sad day. I feel lucky that I was able to enjoy his company at his house not too long ago for a very special evening of listening to brilliant pianist Simone Dinnerstein playing the Goldberg Variations. I've written about that event here.

Bill Buckley's son tells a story of his father's fearlessness. Chris was traveling from New York to Connecticut to meet his father for a sail. On the train up, Chris noticed the weather kept getting worse. He was sure the sail would be canceled. Yet, lo and behold, when the train pulled into Stamford, Chris spied Bill, the gale force winds doing nothing to deter his sense of adventure.

Bill's joie de vivre was contagious. I'd like to think I caught a bit of it myself when I accepted a date with a handsome young man to join him for a sail on his boat. There were sparks that day and the rest, as they say, is history. The young man was James. The boat was Patito, which Bill had sold to my husband and two other friends.

After our first sail on Patito that day in 2004, I had to make a hasty return to New York. The next morning, I would be protesting the Republic National Convention. This funny amalgam of right and left was a hint of what was to come in my life with James.

Inventors' Country

Dara writes:

It is not often that an article on the front page of the New York Times makes me laugh out loud. Not the hysterical laughter that issues forth involuntarily from bad news, since that is what typically mars an NYT front page. No: laughter of hilarity, of mirth. Yet, this is what came on Saturday, during my breakfast, at this, an article about crime fighting techniques in Japan, a country with a low crime rate.

According to the article, since the Japanese are averse to confrontation, their crime-fighting techniques facilitate hiding from rather than facing would-be attackers, muggers, etc.. To make hiding easier, one woman has created a skirt that turns into a vending machine. Apparently, a row of vending machines is a common site on a street in Tokyo. All a woman would have to do, were she being pursued, aside from having had the perspicacity to don her vending-machine-skirt that morning, would be to unwrap her skirt, put it over her head, and voila, she looks like she can start dispensing Cokes.

I'm not kidding. The amazing thing, in the photo to which I link, is that you can SEE her blue sneakers sticking out from under the skirt/machine. But maybe the attacking would be running and wouldn't notice that??

Other camo of which the woman has thought is a bag that becomes a manhole and a backpack that becomes a fire hydrant. If you feel someone following you for your money, you can drop your purse on the ground and presumably the thief will walk over it because it looks like a manhole. If your child is being followed, he can slip his pack over his head and become a hydrant.

I adore Japanese writing utensils, notepads, stationery, etc., because it's so inventive. The Kinokinuya store in Rock Center satisfies my yen. This recent NYT story further convinces me I have to get myself to Japan someday.