We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
That's "unity" for ya. Related: Dingell says cap and trade is just a giant tax
An extreme Lefty moves into the Pentagon. She'll be popular, no doubt, with the old soldiers.
But the kids never heard the word "lesbian" til you taught it to them in Kindergarten. Don't you want curious kids? Lesbian pron is fun to watch, isn't it?
...to hear this president run down America, you would think it was a failed state until he was transformed from junior senator of Illinois to president of the United States. He has surpassed Jimmy Carter's precedent of being the first ex-president to criticize while on foreign soil a sitting president. President Obama has become the first sitting American president to criticize America while on foreign soil, and he does it with the practiced zeal of a person who has been feeding on anti-American myths for years.
Hermion's little-known verse was discovered buried in many feet of rubble beneath the ruins of the Alexandria Library in 1872 by a team of British archeologists sponsored by Chauncey, Lord Wizzingham. The singed Greek papyrus fragments were difficult to decipher without modern techniques. They appear to be a poetry instructional text, with a series of samples of the basic forms of ancient Greek lyric poetry. Most of the text has been lost.
His samples are considered to be derivative and unoriginal, cliche-ridden, and thus perhaps a collection of traditional songs and thus of little more literary interest than "The Happy Birthday Song" and "For he's a jolly good fellow." My own translations from the ancient Greek, with my labels for the lyrical types:
Skolion (a song of gratitude to a host)
Praise to our host, who provides the best of wine and the finest oils from his orchards and herbs from his fields. Hail to our host who provides us with the finest fishes and meats. We will remember this feast, and may the Gods bless it. May the Gods bless it well. Today our host is our Lord. Today our host is our Lord. Praise to our generous host today.
Erotikon (a love song)
I open your flower like a lily, and the lily opens for me. Anointed with the scented oils you smell so sweet my tongue must taste your sweetness, sweet maid of Paros. If you only let me, I will be with the Gods. I will be like the Gods in their heavens, if you let me come close. I will even unsheath my nimble sword for you, dear lady, if you show me the kindness I long for. Show me kindness. Show me kindness.
Enkomion (a praise poem for a person)
Dear Heraklon, your arm is strong in battle, your judgement wise in council, your children lovely and compliant, your wife an excellent and dutiful mate. Your concubines are the most lovely and affectionate; your slaves gracious and attentive to every need. There is gold and wheat and oil in your storerooms. How can I, a humble man, find the words to praise your virtues?
Hymenaios (wedding song)
We sing the joyful nuptial song for you. We sing the joyful nuptial song for you. May be you blessed by the Gods with strong sons. May you be blessed by the Gods with lovely daughters. May you prosper. May you prosper. May the Gods take delight in this occasion. May the Gods take delight in this occasion.
Hymn (a praise song to the gods)
Let us praise the Gods who dwell among the clouds, The Gods of the high peaks, the Gods among the clouds. Olympians, smile on our actions. Olympians, smile on our actions. When we seek the good, you smile on our actions. When we please your wishes, you smile on our actions. Strengthen our hands and arms, and smile on our actions. Fatten our animals, and enrich our harvests. Infect our enemies with disease, and enrich our harvests. Defeat our enemies, and smile on our harsh actions. We will forever praise you. We will forever praise you.
Dithyramb (a song for Dionysus)
Lord of the dance, Lord of the wines, Lord of the pure wines, Lord of the scented wines, Lord of the wild hills, Lord of the high thyme-scented hills, Lord who rides the snarling panther to our festivities. Join us in our festivities, Dionysus. Join us in our festivities, Dionysus. You are the horned bull, the young women hunger for your presence. The old women are made jubilant and youthful by your presence. Drink the wine we bring, the wine we made, the fragrant wine we offer, the wine which makes us dance, the wine which makes us amorous, the wine which makes us run and dance.
Threnos (a funeral song)
Archemion, you have travelled from us. Archemion, you have travelled from us. With our funeral song, we will remember you. With our funeral song, we will remember you. With our funeral song, the Gods will remember you. The Gods will watch your travels, and remember your good works.
Paean (a hymn to Apollo sung around the altar)
Lord Apollo, it is our joy to celebrate you. Lord Apollo, it is our joy to celebrate you. The source of our illumination and wisdom, our lamp and our light, our lamp and our light, our lamp in the evening and our light by day, the Prince of Olympus, the Prince of Olympus. Our joy is to bring our gifts to your altar. Our joy is to bring our sacrifices to your sacred altar.
Image: A Bell-Krater (c. 440 BC), used for mixing wine with water and flavorings (which the Dionysians refused to do - they drank their wine unmixed to get their holy buzz on).
Taken as a whole, Obama's social democratic agenda is breathtaking. And the rollout has thus far been brilliant. It follows Kaus' advice to "give pandering a chance" and adheres to the Democratic tradition of being the party that gives things away, while leaving the green-eyeshade stinginess to those heartless Republicans.
It will work for a while, but there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served.
Our shrink friend Nathan, who has completed Aliyah in Israel, sends this reminiscence of his days working for the Indian Health Service, doing general practice including surgery and obstetrics - and anything else that was needed. Old-timey medicine.
Before replacing the sloughed skin on Mrs. R's arm, I had to find out why her forearm was raw to the muscle. New here among the Sioux, I am surprised to learn that my colleagues (and one ancient Roman Catholic always fiddling with her rosary) hadn't checked this elderly, chunky widow's blood sugar: diabetic, sure enough, never diagnosed. So, first things first: stabilize her blood sugars, treat the diabetes, and give proper antibiotics (for anaerobes and aerobes -- they missed this too), then when you see the shiny, glimmer of healthy tissue margins, go for a skin flap transplant.
The pharmacist was my surgical assistant; he was the brightest of the bunch, from N'orlins, La before the Flood, he couldn't get into med school, he said, but he was smart, hard-working and pleased to assist. He also ordered special hickory chips from N'orlins, La. to barbecue and made his own roux. It was then that I learned I loathed ochra, that slimy matrix it exudes.
Then how to unskin a lady was not to be straightforward as it was at the University hospital where I studied. The surgical suite -- well-endowed -- had not been used for years; surgery was sent eighty-miles up-road to Mobridge to the White hospital; none done here, except deliveries (which too often evolved into C-sections who had to be sent, ambulance screaming, up to Mobridge. One trip, the eternally-soused obstetrician kept his fist in the mother's vagina to keep the baby from popping out.
To unskin a forearm means to find a donor site from the inner thigh. Anesthesia needed for this and there was no anestheiologist, no nurse-anesthetist, even in the 1970's. I do double duty. First, a lumbar block to numb the donor site; second, a brachial plexus block -- in the armpit -- to numb the recipient, the naked forearm. Lumbars I had done many of: babies with possible meningitis; Southside Chicago girls in active labor, with no prenatal care and needing an urgent C-section. But, brachial plexus block was a never-done for me; remembered the anatomy, the complex twistings and routings within that armpit, like some noodling of telephone wires beneath the city streets, but never stuck a needle there. The night before surgery, I bone-up on my Netter's anatomy and hit the spot square-on the next day in the O.R.
Before hitting the OR, I had done several days debriding of the sloughed wound: fresh it must be to transplant the sod of skin. In the OR, flipped on her side, I slid into the vertebral space between L4 and 5; a bit lordotic pull by the nurses and I had a clear tunnel in. Then, flapped on her back, Mrs R. was ready. The thigh well scrubbed, Betadined, aproned, an oval hole isolating the site. Instruments we had. The strange loopy-scalpel to slice just-thick-enough epidermis and a touch if dermis to both "take" to the new site, yet leaving some dermis to heal-over the thigh; something like a large cheese knife the instrument looked. Forearm next. Her arm flung up like some lop-sided angel wing, I probed left-handed with two gloved fingers, then slid the massively long needle --- like from the cartoons -- in between the stretch of skin. Wait. Wait. Numbness without paralysis in the arm. First, a touch on the skin (for sensitive fibers); then a pinch with a forceps (for the pain C-fibers) and success.
Laying the layers onto the site is much like laying sod; carefully, side by side, the edges trimmed to the wound shape. The "root" growing will take on its own, a pressure bandage holding the skin sod in place. A fine lawn it will hopefully be; like sodding around a putting hole -- it should look good and cover the ground. And after five or six days of brief peeks, it looks darn good.
But, Mrs. R. wants a pass to leave early. There will be a Sundance ceremony with several initiants, including, I learn later, Russel Means, wanted by the FBI for shooting three men on Rosebed reservation, down south. I explain, I plead in fact, that she can't rotate the arm; she must stay in hospital a week or so until we know healing has happened. Mrs. R. has donated two buffalo for eats at the ceremony and insists, politely, quietly, firmly, that she is going. Wakantanka, the Sioux god whose voice one hears shushing through the Black Hills, will protect her. She invites me.
Being invited was one thing; getting in another. I and Debby were the only washichus, white men, attending. While this was a Lakota Sioux ceremony, it had become politicized; other tribes, mostly the more militant ones, as far away as the Navajo, had sent "guards": thick-armed toughs with long, greasy black hair and their image of mean on their faces. The fellow who greeted us -- we had the red Fiat 128 in South Dakota -- commanded us out. A face like a slab of steak with two eyes embedded, he frisked me; looking for drugs and guns, he said. His compatriots searched the tiny Fiat's baggage, checked under the carriage, beneath the seats, glove compartment. When he turned to frisk Debby, I told him firmly, no way: I would turn around and he could explain to Mrs. R. why I was not admitted. Her name was a key to the lock that was his harshness. We were passed through.
I did not expect to be the only Washichu; thought other docs would be invited; learned later that my do-gooder colleagues who come to save the Indians are not so welcome. Already, I had dispensed with making morning rounds with them, as I tired and was irritated at the "religion" they spouted at bedside; told them I needed to round earlier.
We formed a large circle. Formed is not quite right. A circle was somehow formed by the few hundred there, centered by the cottonwood from which leather strops hung. Each strop was anchored with a bone hook -- from what animal I don't recall, perhaps antelope. The six piercees entered; I'm told by Mrs. R. that they had purified themselves in the wild for several days with fasting and water. The hooks are pierced into the pectoral muscle, not the skin, to hold more firmly; one on each side. as the men leaned back against the leather thongs, faces skyward, Cubist, uptilting tits were formed: this manly ceremony giving rise to a touch of woman. A moaning or humming was emitted by them by these men; also those in the circle, as the men stomped sidewise about, a dance they called it, in a hypnotic slowness. A timeless quality it felt.
Near the end, several men appear with massive shallow wooden bowls, face us in the circle and pass around the dried buffalo donated by Mrs. R.
She is called to near the center. A peace pipe is to be given to her for her generosity. As some chiefly type raises the pipe, his arms extended, palms upward, I realize, a touch shocked, that she will now rotate her arms upward to receive the peace pipe with both hands. I feel a belly clutch: will she tear the stitches?
Mrs. R. looks back at me afterwards; tosses a smile of reassurance. Thanks to Wakantanka the skin is fine, she explains.
One weekend, we go to the Black Hills, find a cabin, rest outside beneath a sky filled with more stars than I have ever imagined. I feel a sense of annoyance as I hear the rush of what sounds like highway traffic just beyond the ridge. Ridge top I look: no highway; it is Wakantanka speaking through the black pine.
It was the only time He has ever spoken around me.
Top photo: Sioux war party, 1870s? Middle photo: Sioux warrior Lower photo: Sioux village
Does your town do recycling? If so, do you know where that stuff ends up? I mean where your junk really ends up.
I challenge any curious readers to find out what ultimately happens to the paper, plastics, beer cans, and glass that are put out so dutifully and virtuously for the garbagemen or recycling pick-ups in your town.
Two or three phone calls ought to do it. "It gets recycled" is not an adequate answer.
For extra credit: Try to find out what you or your town pays for this service, and who profits, if anyone, from your thoughtful donations of your precious garbage. And for your effort spent, as Roger says, "going through your garbage like a raccoon."
The subject picqued my interest because I have noticed that our garbagemen for the past year have been throwing the "recyling" paper and newspapers into their regular garbage truck. My guess is that most "recycled" stuff in the US ends up in landfills, but I do not know for sure. I do know that recycling glass is an economic absurdity, and that recycling plastics is too expensive to be worthwhile: it is just made from a 1/10 teaspoon of oil.
If you’re too-well-satisfied that you’re a good greenie, you’re more willing to cut yourself slack when you hurt the environment.
Call it the Al Gore’s Giant Fraggin’ Mansion Effect.
According to a new study in Psychological Science, humans engage in a process called “moral self-regulation.” Basically, we’re constantly calculating the trade-off between being able to see ourselves as good people and the cost of engaging in all that non-advantageous goodness.
You might expect that being prompted (primed) to think of yourself as a good person would make you more altruistic or moral — but, in fact, the exact opposite appears to be the case.
Read the whole thing. I have too many reactions to this to post briefly, but my first thought was that I have seen this many times. (See Obama's Earth Day flights burn 9000 gallons of fuel.) The process goes far beyond Greenieism. Many people play tricks with themselves in order to have their cake and eat it too.
The NJ summed it up perfectly: "They seem to think they get a pass because they're good." It reminds me of our recent QQQ from PJ O'Rourke: "Everybody wants to save the world but nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes."
It's important to most people to view themselves as virtuous. Cheap and easy virtuousness (recycling, donating to charities, volunteering, serving on committees, etc) is often used by people, consciously or unconsciously, to excuse or to compensate for their sins and crimes (eg not reporting cash income, cutting corners, patronizing massage parlors, spreading gossip, lying, etc). In my view, honest people wrestle with sin rather than playing the "moral self-regulation" game.
How many criminals have been described as "pillars of their community," "great guy, always kind and generous," "everybody loved him," "a great supporter of civic causes"? Lots of them.
I am not talking about guilt-driven "conspicuous virtue" here, like the cheating guys who bring their wives roses - I am talking about the secret compromises people make internally so as not to mentally suffer from their feelings of sinfulness and hypocrisy.
I could go on and on on this topic. More later, maybe.
Photo: John Gotti, the "Dapper Don," once a pillar of his community of Howard Beach, Queens, NYC, generous donor to his church and kids' sports, and an avid recycler with a deeply caring interest in the always-Green trash-hauling and recycling biz.
How else to get truth out of them? This from Jules:
As the vengeful handwringing angels of the America-bashing left have always said about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, you can’t just go for the foot soldiers. The fish rots at the head. In this sorry business of abusive interrogations, let’s start with that body that serves as the conscience of the nation … Congress. You remember, the concerned American deliberative body that was apprised at the highest levels of the CIA’s practices and asked if there weren’t tougher methods that could be used against the enemies of our nation. Verdict in the dark days of 2002? Waterboarding OK!
As we wrote a couple of years back in another context, "It's naive to believe [citizens] should be content to have physical comforts handed to them on a welfare platter. No man — no creature worth its salt — can bear the shame. Come to think of it, that's exactly what's wrong with the liberal project. Talk about intellectual bankruptcy.
You can’t believe in or be loyal to, low taxes and small government, but you can believe in freedom because you can imagine what it means to be a slave, and you can be loyal to the principle of personal sovereignty. And so can a lot of other people who aren’t conservatives.
Quicker than most expected, even those most critical of him, President Obama has unleashed his and his political party’s dénouement as grossly irresponsible and corrupt, to the unacceptable danger to the country’s survival.
His partial and skewed release of formerly secret documents about the interrogation of captured terrorists raises the prominence of the issue, and consequently of other major issues, in ways that very well may, and should, relegate the Democrat Party to the political hinterland for a generation.
1.The weight of informed and involved expertise on the interrogations is that they served to avoid additional terrorist attacks.The MSM’s trumpeting of the Obama partial releases makes it unavoidable for the MSM to provide the consumers of its media with the fuller story that will emerge.
2.Polls have consistently demonstrated the public is more in tune with better safe than sorry, and with little sympathy for applying Americans’ civil rights to foreign terrorists.The risks that Obama is taking with our security, and that of our allies, is not acceptable.
3.The Congressional Democrats, who have harped at every move taken by the Bush administration, own leadership were not only fully informed of those measures at the time but -- before seeking political advantage by unscrupulously reversing course – were advocates of even sterner measures.Continuing exposure of the formerly secret documents will further reveal their crass perfidy.
4.The increased exposure further highlights to the public the recidivism of many released from Guantanamo and the demurral to accept releasees by European countries critical of Guantanamo.This reinforces the conclusion that benign treatment of sworn enemies is suicidal.
5.Members of our intelligence community, and of formerly cooperating foreign intelligence agencies, will pull back from full exertion due to increased restrictions imposed and from reticence to be pilloried by leftists in power.
6.G-d forbid another significant terrorist attack occurs, particularly traceable to the denuding of vigilance among our intelligence agencies, the backlash will be harsh against those who crippled our security.
7. The cumulative impact of 1-5 above, and hopefully not even the 6th, sits on top of the unfolding and recognized debacle of the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats’ handling of the economic downturn to slip by intrusions -- into the economy, into health care, into taxation, into almost any facet of society it can -- that are destructive of our and future generations’ solvency and freedoms.The unease already claims a majority of citizens, and will become overwhelming.
8.The corruption endemic within the Washington and Chicago way of doing things, already evident to any observer, will be increasingly exposed as Democrats and their media allies lose their impunity to stifle full airings.
9.The willingness and arrogance of members of the Obama administration to invent ludicrous and extra-legal rationalizations for power grabs leads to more, as lies beget lies.The cover-ups and the overstepping of clearer legal red lines will create scandal after scandal.
10.In 2010, Republicans will increase their depleted power within Congress.The uniqueness of 2008 will be a memory, there won’t be a tail from a campaigning Obama, and centrists who regret straying into Democrat votes will be reduced. The hue against Obama and Democrat excesses and dangers will lead to more exposures.
The only reason that Obama and Congressional Democrats would avoid this dénouement is if one believes there are too few Americans with the intelligence to know up from down.The Democrats are counting on that poor bet.
Geez, Bird Dog. You kids these days with your newfangled Greek lyre and pan-flute noise music. I kick it old school -- Phoenecian, baby! 3400 years ago, the oldest known written melody was scratched out in cuneiform.
The text consists of: "Akkadian terms written in a Hurrianized manner and enscribed in Ugaritic Cuneiform script." (Big deal. According to our current Treasury Secretary, so are the instructions to TurboTax) You can read all about the tablet and the people that read Hurrian well enough to decipher it here. In the meantime, some robo-dweeb hep cat has tightened up his funky lyre and banged out that paean to Nikkal, the Moon Goddess:
Man-o-man, you're L7 if you didn't tap a toe to that one. Hurr Hurr Hurrian, baybee!
Monotonic music mainly, with lyre, drum, trumpet and flute, with different "modes" to evoke different states of mind. The ancient Greeks considered their music and lyrics to be central to who they were as a civilization, and, of course, to be a gift from the gods. As best I can tell, poetry (the lyrics) was never offered without accompanying music.
The group Melpomen recreates the ancient sounds from surviving fragments. (Samples of the music at the Amazon site.)
Wiki has a fine summary of ancient Greek music. Interesting to read that Plato (c 400 BC) complained about the modern music which defied old forms.
Remarkable photos of China today (h/t, Tiger). It shows what happens to an energetic people when they are set free from their socialist straightjackets. Wealth suddenly and magically appears.
I don't follow the cable talkers much, but Insty linked to a piece about Rachel Maddow, who I have never seen. A commenter on that article named The Abstractor offered these interesting observations:
Glenn Beck just got started on FOX and is pulling more at 5:00pm then some of the primetime greats. He's beating Nancy Grace by 1 million viewers after leaving her network when he had the time slots right next to her. Something about FOX sells and/or something about MSNBC & CNN stinks.
I'll catch hell for saying this here, but there's a marked difference in attitude between right-wing and left-wing pundits that makes the former much more watchable than the latter.
On-air conservatives seem to make more general pleas to the public that what they believe is good and right, and that people will come around to "see it their way", but there's no assumption that the conservative way of looking at the world (which can be intellectually complicated at times) is obvious or that someone is especially evil for opposing that viewpoint. They're like tele-evangelists asking their audience to come to Jesus and that they'll be blessed if they do, but they're not necessarily screaming hellfire and damnation if you don't believe what they do.
Liberal/Progressives pundits, on the other hand, seem to take a lot for granted in what they're proposing, and whom there proposing it to. American conservatives have made some intellectually complex arguments--based on economics, theology, history, philosophy, and observance of human behavior--why they oppose universal healthcare, welfare, affirmative action, taxes on the wealthy, gay marriage, etc. There are virtually no attempts at intellectual counterarguments from liberals based on the intellectual framework of how conservatives frame their arguments. Instead, the entire conservative way of looking at the world is flawed.
E.g. It's wrong for the rich to be taxed, not because investment of tax dollars in society will add to their wealth in the long run, but because they have "enough" or "too much" and they have a moral duty to "pay their fair share". Some even go as far as saying a wealthy capitalist lifestyle is destroying the earth.
E.g. Fundamental Christians aren't wrong on abortion or homosexuality because they're misapplying scripture, they're wrong because scripture is false. (Here's a trick: try quoting to religious anti-abortion people Exodus 21:22, then say it's the reason Orthodox and Conservative Jews don't believe abortion is categorically murder.)
Liberals pundits don't argue (or at least argue enough or earnestly enough) that liberal policies would be good for conservatives, but assume that what liberals believe is categorically good, and anyone opposing them is categorically bad and acting out of bad motives. More to the point, it seems at times that the talking heads on MSNBC are openly hostile to large demographic chunks of the country and want to see these groups fundamentally defeated and removed in some fashion from political power. Most of the TV watching public--righty or lefty--don't want to hear that kind of talk day in and day out.
Suppose gentlemen, you said to me, ‘Socrates, you shall be acquitted on this occasion, but only on one condition. That you give up spending your time on this quest and stop philosophising. If we catch you going on in the same way, you shall be put to death. Well, supposing, as I said, that you should offer to acquit me on these terms, I should reply: "Men of Athens, I am your very grateful and devoted servant, but I owe a greater obedience to God than to you, and so long as I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting you and elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet. I shall go on saying, in my usual way, “My friend, you are an Athenian and belong to a city which is the greatest and famous in the world for its wisdom and strength. Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with honour and reputation, and care so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?" "
Cap and trade would cost you $3600/year. And accomplish nothing. Slightly related: Rick Moran thinks about greening the Repubs. We at Maggie's are passionate conservationists, but think that the Greenies are wacko pagans.
Insurance is not medical care. Indeed, health care is not the same as medical care. Countries with universal health care do not have more or better medical care.
The bottom line is medical care. But the rhetoric and the talking points are about insurance. Many people who could afford health insurance do not choose to have it because they know that medical care will be available at the nearest emergency room, whether they have insurance or not.
This is especially true for young people, who do not anticipate long-term medical problems and who can always get a broken leg or an allergy attack taken care of at an emergency room -- and spend their money on a more upscale lifestyle.
This may not be a wise decision but it is their decision, and there is no reason why other people should lose the right to make decisions for themselves because some people make questionable decisions.
If you don't think government bureaucrats can make questionable decisions, then you haven't dealt with many government bureaucrats.
...as a young folk singer, he strained to sound older and more sorely tested than he was, as if he had known Charley Patton, A.P. Carter and the Great Depression firsthand. He's finally there, with an authentically pitted instrument ideally suited to the devastated settings of these songs and the rusted desert-shed production (by Dylan under his usual pseudonym, Jack Frost): brushed-snare strolls and bar-band shuffles; bag-of-snakes guitars, with frequent stinging fills by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; the rippled sigh and mocking laugh of an accordion icing most songs, played by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. Compared to the Western-swing-like buoyance of Love and Theft and the Fifties-Chess-session air of Modern Times, this record sounds like it was cut in the dead-end Mexican border town in Orson Welles' 1958 film noir, Touch of Evil, especially when Dylan gets to lines like the closing few in "Forgetful Heart," a musky blend of banjo, dirty guitar and utter emotional defeat: "All night long/I lay awake and listen to the sound of pain/The door has closed forevermore/If indeed there ever was a door."
I had lunch yesterday with a friend who runs a fund at Fidelity in Boston. She mentioned how many friends and acquaintances she has who had been - or had felt - wealthy but are now in desperate straits.
They had overpaid for grand houses in Cambridge and Chestnut Hill, and then did million-dollar renovations and extensions. They overpaid and leveraged themselves further by buying weekend houses in Maine, Nantucket, Westport or Marion. They bought expensive cars, and paid $300,000 on interior decorating. Wherever they travelled, they stayed at the Four Seasons unless they were golfing in Ireland or Scotland. They had had the sort of blind optimism that led them to believe that $1.5 million bonuses would continue forever. They saved next to nothing. And these are not stupid people: these are bright folks, Ivy League MBAs who know math - but unwise.
She told me about somebody like that in their late 30s whose family has had to move into her parents' house in Natick, and who has their two homes on the market.
We spoke of the time-honored and traditionally-admired Yankee virtue of not living within your means, but below your means. We spoke about the Yankee virtues of "making do," "going without," and giving to others. We spoke about ostentatiousness and conspicuous consumption. We pontificated about whether getting and spending represented an emotional or spiritual emptiness, or a hollowness in a part of American culture. We reflected on whether the childish "I want..." had replaced more durable and mature motives and life guidelines. We touched on what God wants from us, as we always do when we are together. We remembered the old-time Yankee pride in driving old, beat-up station wagons to the tattered old WASPy yacht club in Marblehead. We remembered the old-time Yankee pride in owing nothing, and the pride and freedom that confers: owning your life.
Then, after an excellent no-carb lunch and with a couple of chardonnays under our belts, we went shopping.
Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.
...it was not just Leftist conspiracy theorists who a few short were years ago accusing the government of lying to us about global cooling. Even books for schoolchildren like The New Ice Age by Henry Gilford, cautioned thirty years ago that the temperature of the earth had been steadily cooling and that a new ice age was certain. What investigative reporters and schoolbook publishers were insisting during the Carter and Reagan presidencies was being endorsed by some great scientists as well.
Sir Fred Hoyle is one of the leading cosmologists in human history. No scientist today can claim greater intellectual stature than Hoyle, particularly about our planet in the universe. In 1981, Hoyle published a book, Ice: How the New Ice Age will Come and How We Can Prevent It, in which this brilliant giant of natural sciences warned of the next ice age. The consequences, Hoyle warned, would be disastrous. It would:
"...hopelessly compromise the future...This is why our modern generation must take action to avoid catastrophe, an ultimate catastrophe besides which the problems that concern people, media, and government from day to day are quite trivial."
Hoyle, writing only a decade before the whole global warming jihad became chic science, had studied the climatic trends, the astronomical effects, the impact of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere -- everything, really, that the druids of global warming cite today -- and he had come to exactly the opposite conclusion as today's politically correct science of official global warming.
There is no doubt that there will be a surge in ice. Question is when. Technically, we remain in an ice age, defined as periods in which there are polar ice caps. During most of earth time, there weren't.
In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters.
The cause of my upset is watching the key civil rights issue of this generation — improving big city public school education — get tossed overboard by political gamesmanship. If there is one goal that deserves to be held above day-to-day partisanship and pettiness of ordinary politics it is the effort to end the scandalous poor level of academic achievement and abysmally high drop-out rates for America’s black and Hispanic students.
Some animals are 
Hermion's little-known verse was discovered buried in many feet of rubble beneath the ruins of the Alexandria Library in 1872 by a team of British archeologists sponsored by Chauncey, Lord Wizzingham. The singed Greek papyrus fragments were difficult to decipher without modern techniques. They appear to be a poetry instructional text, with a series of samples of the basic forms of ancient Greek lyric poetry. Most of the text has been lost. 
Laying the layers onto the site is much like laying sod; carefully, side by side, the edges trimmed to the wound shape. The "root" growing will take on its own, a pressure bandage holding the skin sod in place. A fine lawn it will hopefully be; like sodding around a putting hole -- it should look good and cover the ground. And after five or six days of brief peeks, it looks darn good.
Does your town do recycling? If so, do you know where that stuff ends up? I mean where your junk really ends up.
Interesting 
"LOL OMG Talibanz!" 
Got MILFs? This 
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