Piano Lesson

Monday, March 30, 2009
Washington Times
Inside the Beltway
John McCaslin

Piano Lesson

President Obama is doing everything in his power to save a dying U.S. auto industry, providing a combined $17.4 billion to General Motors and Chrysler since January, with another cash infusion on the way.

Perhaps it's time for Mr. Obama to sit down for a piano lesson.

As pointed out by Jeffrey Tucker, editor of the Free Market, the highest priced goods that people buy today besides houses are cars. Thus, the argument: How can we, powerful nation that we are, let our beloved car industry die?

Maybe, one might argue, the same way past U.S. presidents allowed our once-unmatched piano industry to wither when outplayed by other piano-producing nations. As surprising as it may sound, before the car - from 1870 to 1930 - the biggest-ticket item on every household budget, besides the house, was the piano.

“Everyone had to have one,” Mr. Tucker recalled. “Those who didn't have one aspired to have one. It was a prize, an essential part of life, and they sold by the millions and millions.”

To satisfy the demand, a “gigantic U.S. piano industry” blossomed, and by 1890, U.S. workers and their companies were feeding half the world market for pianos.

“It was a case of relentless and astounding growth,” wrote Mr. Tucker, citing such American giants as Steinway, Kimball, Chickering, Wurlitzer and Baldwin. “The American piano industry was the greatest in the world.”

But then came 1930 - “the last great year of the American piano. Sales fell and continued to fall when times were tough. The companies that were beloved by all Americans ... began to go belly-up one by one.”

In 1960, Japan was manufacturing half as many pianos as the United States. Yet by 1970, its production outstripped the United States; and by 1980, the Japanese were making twice as many pianos as Americans. Then the production shifted to Korea, whereas today, China is at the center of world piano production.

”Does anyone care that much?” Mr. Tucker asked in the Ludwig von Mises Institute publication. “Not too many. Have we been devastated as a nation and a people because of it? Not at all. It was just a matter of the economic facts.”

. . . Shipwrecked In South Carolina . . .

Ordinary Men

I now I know what is wrong, we are in Oz . . . . I will let your imagination figure out who is who.

Washingtion Times
From Inside the Beltway,
March 24, 2009

The president of the Citzens in Charge Foundation, Paul Jacob, has a knack of delivering commentary in a way people can relate to. Consider his latest offering, "From Oz to Obama."

"Many things remain perfectly normal," he notes. "For instance, I often lose my car keys and sometimes misplace my cell phone. The University of North Carolina is still good at basketball ...

"But when I read the paper or turn on the radio or TV news, the world has been turned upside down. It's as if I've slipped into a parallel universe. I feel like Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz,' wanting so badly to get back home. Perhaps I feel this way because government officials - from President Obama to the too-big-to-fail treasury secretary, from finger-pointing congressmen to my county commissioners - resemble 'that man behind the curtain.' "

Prayer Is The Greatest Virtue

Prayer is the greatest virtue,
the only way of being free from all sin.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

The first aspect of prayer is giving thanks to God for all the numberless blessings that are bestowed upon us at every moment of the day and night, and of which we are mostly unconscious.

The second aspect of prayer is laying our shortcomings before the unlimited perfection of the divine Being, and asking His forgiveness. This makes man conscious of his smallness, of his limitation, and therefore makes him humble before his God...

There are many virtues, but there is one principal virtue. Every moment passed outside the presence of God is sin, and every moment in His presence is virtue. The whole object of the Sufi, after learning this way of communicating is to arrive at a stage where every moment of our life passes in communion with God, and where our every action is done as if God were before us. Is that within everyone's reach? We are meant to be so. Just think of a person who is in love: when he eats or drinks, whatever he does, the image of the beloved is there. In the same way, when the love of God has come, it is natural to think of God in everything we do.

Prayer is a great virtue and is the only way of being free from all sin. In prayer a man reaches the Spirit of God which is all-powerful and ever-forgiving; and the power of prayer opens the doors of the heart in which God, the All-Merciful resides.

There are many different feelings which have their influence upon men, and give joy and exaltation; but there is none greater and more exalting than that of offering our faults and weaknesses before God and asking His pardon with true repentance and humility. No ethics, no philosophy, can give greater joy than this, which is sincere devotion to God; and the deepest joy is his who knows best how to humble himself before God. The proud man, ignorant of greatness of God, and of His all-sufficient power, does not know this exaltation, which raises the soul from earth to Heaven.

By Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

. . . Shipwrecked In South Carolina . . .

Words For The Day

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams

May those whose hell it is to hate and hurt be turned into lovers bringing flowers.
Shantideva, 8th century Buddhist teacher

In the end we will conserve only what we love.
We will love only what we understand.
We will understand only what we are taught.
Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist (b. 1937)

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.
Audrey Hepburn

All good things are wild, and free.
Henry David Thoreau

Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.
Thomas Merton
Thoughts in Solitude

Life is an opportunity given to satisfy the hunger and thirst of the soul.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Bowl of Saki

Although all men share a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his personal salvation for himself.
We can help each other find the meaning of life, but in the last analysis, each is responsible for finding himself.
Thomas Merton

Dare to be empty.
Dare to let go.
Dare to believe.
Elisabeth L.

Fundamental Problem Of The Spiritual Life

The basic and most fundamental problem of the spiritual life is this acceptance of our hidden and dark self, with which we tend to identify all the evil that is in us.
We must learn by discernment to separate the evil growth of our actions from the good ground of the soul.
And we must prepare that ground so that a new life can grow up from it within us, beyond our knowledge and beyond our conscious control.
The sacred attitude is, then, one of reverence, awe and silence before the mystery that begins to take place within us when we become aware of our innermost self.
In silence, hope, expectation, and unknowing, the man of faith abandons himself to the divine will: not as an arbitrary and magic power whose decrees must be spelled out from cryptic ciphers, but as to the stream of reality and life itself.
The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself.
Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation

Plow, Sow, Reap

The reformer comes to plow the ground;
the prophet comes to sow the seed;
and the priest comes to reap the harvest.

Hazrat Inayat Khan, Bowl of Saki

There is the time of plowing,
there is the time of sowing and
there is the time of reaping the harvest.
It is not all done at the same time.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

The Evolution of Personal Character

Watch your thoughts;
They become your words.

Watch your words;
They become your actions.

Watch your actions;
They become your habits.

Watch your habits;
They become your character.

Watch your character;
It becomes your destiny.