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.
Lawns are dumb things to have, but almost everybody has some. It's expected nowadays, but gardens and plantings are more interesting, look more natural, are more inviting to birds and other friendly critters, and offer more privacy - and shade. On the other hand, everyone needs a space for croquet and badminton.
Once the preserve of the wealthy, lawns became de rigeur for the aspiring middle class during the 20th century, as new homeowners attempted to create miniaturized versions of grand English estates on 1/4, 1/2, 1- and 2-acre building lots.
The orgin of lawns was sheep-grazed fields. Sheep are the primitive machine which transforms grass into wool and mutton.
But the subject assigned to me is top dressing. (Bear in mind that I am talking about Northern and mid-western lawns with Bluegrass and fescue in them. That's all I know about. Southern lawns are an entirely different breed.)
I top dress my lawns every spring, and I know Bird Dog does too. He does it casually, but I do it methodically. I mix about 1/4 leaf compost, 1/8 light sand, 1/8 topsoil or potting soil, 1/4 peat moss and 1/4 composted manure in the big wheelbarrow and toss it around the ground after around the second grass cutting of spring. Probably plain peat moss or composted manure would do the trick just as well. Ideally, it all should be rather dry, but life is never ideal. Then I lightly rake it in - or have the lawn guys rake it in - so it doesn't compress the grass. I apply it rather heavily, and use around 40 wheelbarrow loads for the lawn areas I care about.
It's about stewardship of the land, and not a cheap nitrogen-intoxicated superficial green. We have to remember that lawns are not natural things, but they aren't plastic either.
Met the pupette in NYC yesterday to take her to brunch and to take her to look at some Kandinsky at the Guggenheim. Clever of those Guggenheims to buy so many Kandinskys before he became too well-known, but you have to figger they got rich by being perceptive.
Readers know that I am a Kandinsky fan.
Mrs. BD wanted to get lunch first at the Viennese cafe, Cafe Sabarsky, in the Neue Gallery up the street. Having been in Vienna last summer, I can say that it sure feels like Vienna in there. Wonderful. Gallery worth visiting too.
How come everybody else understands that business taxes harm consumers (who ultimately pay them) and harm job-creation? Everyone, except American Democrats. There should be no corporate taxes despite the fact that it would put a lot of tax lawyers and accountants out of work.
(BTW, I'll be in Bermuda the rest of the week. Business plus pleasure, ie golf and maybe tennis.)
Not that he needs one. There's a line waiting down the sidewalk for supper at Maro's, for his simple menu of grilled shrimp and lobster. And for his Bulldog cocktails. It's like a rustic Cape Cod seafood joint.
It's not our Yankee lobster - it's the lobster that grows down there. Yes, you order by the kilo.
The world of gender studies has never before had to confront anyone quite like this solitary rogue male professor of politics. Critics will rail against his excesses and feminists will be indignant and offended. But many women will be charmed by his effrontery, and grateful for the truth and wisdom in Mansfield's elegant treatise.
Every guy aspires to be a strong, gallant, valiant fellow. It's not easy to do.
The carnage meted out upon the rebel forces in Libya is terrible. However, it does not come anywhere near to a genocide in scope or in numbers. Libya itself is not a strategic concern of the US, although there are implications in the severity of repression encouraging other extremely repressive regimes like Iran and Syria who are foes of the US. US or European military intervention would most likely garner little lasting thanks among radicalized Arabs or among the Arab satrapies that wink in private but enrage their publics. And, the US military is stretched enough already. We still have the capabilities to mount a no-fly operation, the weak Europeans as usual requiring US forces to do much effective, but there is no compelling national interest really to do so.
I've been searching for indications and information that the Arab states themselves could handle a no-fly zone, after their Arab League endorsed one but did not say they would undertake one. At Real Clear World this morning is a piece from a Dubai, UAE think tank that says they should do the job themselves and can do it, A Joint Arab Force Could Better Enforce a Libya No-Fly-Zone. Worth reading, and repeating regardless of who argues the US should do it.
Massachusetts passed a law in 1663 making the wasting of time a crime: “No person, householder or other shall spend his time idly or unprofitably, under pain of such punishment as the court shall think meet to inflict.” A century later, the Boston-born Benjamin Franklin (“time is money”) proposed a version of daylight saving time as a joke to stop slothful Parisians from sleeping in. But it was an English Puritan, Ralph Thoresby, who invented an early alarm clock.
"Unprofitably"? Maggie's Farm would have been in trouble in 1663.
When your FICA tax is taken out of your paycheck, it does not get squirreled away in some lockbox in West Virginia where it's kept until you and your contemporaries retire. Most goes out immediately to pay current retirees, and the rest (say, $100) goes to the U.S. Treasury - and is spent. On roads, bridges, national defense, public television, whatever - spent, gone.
Well, it's our church's Men's Ski (and beer) Retreat weekend at Killington, and I think maybe our Women's Retreat Weekend too somewhere else. But we're just back from 8 days away, so we passed on them this year. I have not skied once this year. Damn shame, because it gives me the greatest joy to wrestle and sweat with a mountain and the trees in the snow and cold. Plus I really need new skis if I intend to stick with this crazy, exhilarating lifelong recreation of mine.
Finishing our Iris week with this tune. It reminds me of Roger McGuinn - another good Jesus freak.
4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
4:2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
4:3 The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
4:4 But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,
4:6 saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
4:7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor;
4:9 and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
4:10 Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"
4:11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Once the US was the New World of promise. After World War II, with optimism and skills, we successfully led the Free World. Since the surrender of Vietnam, and the power of a masochistic elite became entrenched in our media and academia, with a brief and fragile intermission for Morning In America, we've become the Lazy World. With the embattlement of our economy and the fecklessness of our current administration, we're the Retrenching World. What's next? Wayne's World or The New Beginning at keeping the promise?
Catrina dolls and other wonderful death dolls at Mi Casa Restaurant. They are hand-made, of painted clay appropriately enough, and expensive.
Whever I want something but have no use for it and don't want to spend the $, I just take a snap of it. Then I own it, in a way. I am trying to teach Mrs. BD that approach to things - symbolic possession by internalizing an image or idea. But does it work for designer shoes?
You do not have to be Tocqueville to recognize that the fundamental American character has always featured a powerful determination to get ahead, to build a better future on the basis of current effort and sacrifice. It is not sectional ethnic animosity that stands in the way of implementing socialism in the United States, it is the fundamental American character and the values and attitudes that the country was built upon.
We are not Canada, not because we have blacks, but because we are the rebels who threw off the yoke of monarchy in favor of Liberty and individualism, and Canada was, practically speaking, founded by the Tories who preferred being subjects and dependents. We will never be Canada.
It's all about buying votes in Iowa. Ethanol belongs in beer and cocktails. I don't know why they don't call it "alcohol" - or moonshine, because that's what the pols want us to inflict on our teetotaling chain saws, lawn mowers, and outboard engines.
Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which yet thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must low And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men And dost with poison, war and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then ? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Lawns are dumb things to have, but almost everybody has some. It's expected nowadays, but gardens and plantings are more interesting, look more natural, are more inviting to birds and other friendly critters, and offer more privacy - and shade. On the other hand, everyone needs a space for croquet and badminton. 
T-shirt via 
Independents 
The invention of adolescence