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.
The first seder ("order" of the prayers, recitation of the Exodus, and feast) of Passover begins tonight. Some find the printed "order" and its rituals long, especially when hungry. So, here's what the short version might have looked like, if Moses had the Internet.
For those interested in Passover and the seder, you'll find this cinematic telling and interpretations easy, informative and interesting. "Corresponding to the individual steps of the Haggadah, each short video offers unique, visual, commentary on the Passover story, allowing viewers to engage with this ancient and much revered text in new and compelling ways."
Lord Jesus, come Yourself, and dwell with us, be human as we are, and overcome what overwhelms us. Come into the midst of my evil, come close to my unfaithfulness. Take my sin, which I hate and which I cannot leave. Be my brother, Thou Holy God. Be my brother in the kingdom of evil and suffering and death. Come with me in my death, come with me in my suffering, come with me as I struggle with evil. And make me holy and pure, despite my sin and death, in Jesus' name.
One annual fee. Doesn't cover consultants, though, or hospital. Free markets for medical care would solve all of the problems. For example (with apologies to our local Opthalmologist), our family uses the Costco doc for eye care. Nice guy there. You just write him a manageable check, and their eyeglasses and contact lenses are very reasonable (if not high fashion).
Just one more reason for polygamy. Why not have 5 or 6 of 'em? Send them all out to work on jobs on Wall St., and the stud stays home, works out, goes to gallery openings, writes on blogs, practices his trap shooting, goes fishin', makes a venison stew for dinner, and generally conserves his strength for nighttime fireworks.
Cute spoiled kids, looking for meaning and purpose in their empty, easy, self-indulgent lives through telling me to turn off my lights, my heat, and my computer. (Not their own, of course, because they have important "organizing" work to do, and organizing people is hard, important work.) Furthermore, they want me to quit eating Whale Sushi. I can't help it: it must be a chemical addiction and not my fault.
Via Tim Blair, a vid on Greenpeace indoctrination and training:
I graduated in the recession of '75, wanted to return to NH, and was willing to take any job I could get. Apparently people who enter the job market during recessions have some tendency to never recover from that, always selling themselves short and never making as much at graduates in other years. That's true in my case, but also a good thing. I was terribly arrogant and needed to be brought down a few - no, several - pegs. I counted myself lucky to get a part-time job at the Goodnight Motel in Hooksett at $3/hr. The owner's name really was Goodnight - first Fred, and then his son Gary - and their main business was selling mobile homes on the other side of the highway. Marlette mobile homes, I'll have you know. The Cadillac of mobile homes. And they were moving into Yankees (very stylish) and doublewides, 24' x 36'.
We always contend that lawns are foolish things to have. Foolish, and unnatural. We prefer meadows and gardens, but everybody needs a place to play croquet or softball, or to lie in the sun with a book, growing your basal cell carcinomas and your liver spots. We reluctantly acknowledge that, in some suburban areas, a sweeping lawn is a social if not an aesthetic requirement.
All the same, we urge folks to consider how much of that lawn they might exchange for some more interesting colorful perennial or shrub borders and ground covers. A nice English garden, whether formal or informal, uses lawn as an accent and for paths - as just one component of design and mentally, I think, as a comforting symbol of safe civilization to contrast with the blooming profusion of the other plantings. Order vs. disorder. Open vs. closed. Safe vs. mysterious. Landscape design is a psycho-spiritual enterprise. This is a garden outside of London:
Here's a brief history of the American lawn. Yes, the lawn is more-or-less designed to imitate the smooth effect of a sheep-grazed pasture on an English country estate.
Today, a bit about lawn aeration, fertilizer, irrigation, earthworms, and "de-thatching." In reverse order:
"De-thatching" is a completely useless and unnecessary activity. No healthy soil needs it, and a healthy soil is the key to a decent sod. "Thatch" - old grass - will rapidly decompose or be eaten by worms in a good lawn, recycling the nutrients and keeping your worms fat and happy.
Earthworms. We said everything we know about the wonderful earthworm in this post. They aerate and enrich the sod. If your sod doesn't contain plenty of them, something is wrong with it.
Irrigation. No natural lawn requires irrigation. If you try to grow lawn grasses in places they don't want to grow, like the Arizona desert, they will need irrigation of course. Around here, people with money to burn irrigate their lawns to trick the grass into staying green all summer, and not enter their natural summer dormancy when they are apt to turn brown. Lawn grasses grow the way they do because our mowing cuts their tops off while they keep trying to grow to their natural height and to bear their seeds. It must be frustrating to the poor things. In natural conditions, grasses grow to their full height, bear their seeds (say, in early July) and then go dormant until cool damp weather brings them back to life. If you keep them strugging at their Sisyphisian effort through the mid-summer with irrigation, they will naturally need more fertilizer to look photogenic.
Fertilizer and top-dressing. Our lawns do need fertilizer because they are deprived of natural sources of nutrients (fallen leaves, animal droppings, clover and other wild legumes with their nitrogen-fixing bacteria, silting from flooding, etc). When you bag or blow the clippings, then even more so - and you starve the worms, too. My top-dressing program not only fertilizes organically, but also improves the soil texture. I also fertilize lawns in June and September/October. I don't use water-soluble nitrogen, because most that will end up in the stream. I use mowing machines that mulch the clippings and fallen leaves. I don't need to use herbicides, because the grass is happy. And I don't use pesticides because there is no good reason to waste the money and to poison Creation.
Aeration. In nature, earthworms, moles, woodchucks, and other digging critters keep the topsoil loose and in motion. Loose soil is need for root growth, water and nutrient penetration, and to provide air for aerobic soil microbes. Our lawns tend to get compacted, and people try to kill their happy moles because they interfere with the "perfect lawn" (which, of course, is meant to be a reflection of our perfect selves, right?). Aeration of lawns and sports fields is essential, and should be done depending on how heavily the grass is tromped on. Some lawns, every two years. Sports fields need twice per year. There are two kinds of aerators. The spike aerators (like this) do nothing useful. What is needed is the plugger type (like this one, in photo above), which pulls out forty-fifty per square yard 2-4"-deep plugs out of the sod and deposits them on the surface. (it makes a temporary mess, but one good heavy rain removes most evidence of the plugs.) Plug aeration is commonly done in the Fall, but I like to do it in the Spring, after the grass gets growing thick and vigorously (May), and combine it with my biennial top-dressing project and with any overseeding that seems needed.
The downside of plugging is having dogs with muddy feet on your bed for a couple of days.
...this vision has never been implemented in full. But it has offered a model, for good and for ill. For the left, it provided long-term goals, criteria for distinguishing progress from retreat in making short-term compromises, and a kind of definition of the just society. For the right, it was a foil to be combated and averted — an archetype of soulless, stifling bureaucratic hubris — and it helped put objections to seemingly modest individual leftward steps into a broader, more coherent context. But both ends of our politics seemed implicitly to agree that, left to its own momentum, this is where our country was headed — where history would take us if no one stood athwart it yelling stop.
It is no longer really possible to think so. All over the developed world, nations are coming to terms with the fact that the social-democratic welfare state is turning out to be untenable. The reason is partly institutional: The administrative state is dismally inefficient and unresponsive, and therefore ill-suited to our age of endless choice and variety. The reason is also partly cultural and moral: The attempt to rescue the citizen from the burdens of responsibility has undermined the family, self-reliance, and self-government. But, in practice, it is above all fiscal: The welfare state has turned out to be unaffordable, dependent as it is upon dubious economics and the demographic model of a bygone era.
...the primacy of local or township government in American society made it possible for a great number of Americans to participate in political institutions on a regular basis. Whether as Fire Chief or head of the St. John’s Mint Festival, whether as Dog Catcher or Mayor, Americans were continually forced to turn away from themselves and to attend to the life and business of their neighbor. The long habit of such participation in public life convinced Americans that, despite their equality, they need not and could not be indifferent to the particulars of social life. This also preserved Americans from the tendency to invest their political beliefs in a few general ideas. Accustomed to the details of daily participation in political life, they did not let what is often called (wrongly, I think) “ideology” substitute for active engagement in the public realm. This was possible chiefly because the actions of political life were largely confined to the local level, even when the legislation directing that life occured far away.
"The number of foreign companies are up 35 percent," to 496 out of the total 1,550, he said.
He said that despite UN sanctions and bilateral punitive measures by the United States and the European Union against Iran, "Germany is present with 64 companies, Italy with 36, Britain with 37, Spain with 14, France with 15 and South Korea with 33 companies."...
"The strong participation of foreign companies is a response to the illusion of (Western) sanctions," quipped the oil official.
While Iran forments trouble throughout the Middle East, and arms and directs Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, Western and Chinese companies supply the cash to do so.
Hollywood propagandist fimmaker Robert Redford has his latest revisionist history film, The Conspirator, torn asunder in the Washington Post review. Excerpt:
Replace “post-Vietnam” with “post-Iraq” and you get a pretty good description of how the U.S. military is portrayed in “The Conspirator.” Rather than a principle worth fighting for, or a fragile democracy still vulnerable to dead-enders who would reignite the war, the Union is painted as the nest that hatched the egg of an overweening state and arrogant abuse of power.
I'm delivering food and doing errands for my old folks this weekend. My Mom fell and cracked her patella while unloading groceries, cannot drive for 6 weeks, and can barely hobble around on her brace - and my Dad is half-blind, has Parkinson's, and is not allowed to drive anymore. His ornery self refuses to take the Parkinson's medicine but, thankfully, he finally agreed to get himself a hearing aid.
A neighbor is driving Mom to her best friend's funeral today at our family church on the hill.
I brought them Chinese take-out last night: Cold hot pepper cabbage, Scallion pancakes, and Scallops with Snow Peas. Then a plate of strawberries. Also left them some black bread and Nova Salmon for breakfast. Tomorrow, I'll bring them some take out Thai soups. They look too skinny, need feeding. They were never much into eating, unless it was especially good.
Somehow, we got on the topic of past family trips. I was laughing to remember the volumes of disposable diapers we travelled with - they were not available in Europe back then. With a family of 5 kids, there was usually at least one in diapers (and at least one in a bad mood). I remember trying to help tie them (the bags of diapers, not the younger brats, unfortunately) to the roof of the rental cars. My Dad always travelled with rope for that purpose, in the pre-bungee-cord era.
My Mom was remembering the large Raspberry plantings at the Roman Camp Hotel, where we all had stayed for a few days. Watching her litter grazing on Scotland's excellent raspberries, ripping them off the rows of canes. A wonderful place. My parents are picky about where they will stay - they can't stand glitz or "fancy," and they don't do tacky. They are the typical old Yankee WASPy breed that is only comfortable with understated refinement and genteel semi-shabby. No "luxury," please. They feel that "luxury" is vulgar (whereas I can learn to appreciate it when I can find it). Mom liked this place:
A few years after that trip, my folks did something unusual and selfishly left the kids behind and took a trip by themselves, and biked the length of Hadrian's Wall. Or, as my Dad corrects me, walls: there are two of them. They were finished with breeding. We had many good trips; lots of stories and tons of colorful memories. I can't remember them all: Somewhere in Europe every August, and Cape Cod too. Ocean liners - I remember each one of them. Two ski weeks each winter. Monhegan Island regularly. Very nice. Like those Bald Eagle parents with their rabbits and fish, I think they wanted to fill us with all of the experiences that they could, and the heck with the expense.
As much as I love my cozy home, going anywhere new, near or far, still ignites the adventurous spark in me, like a kid. I am lucky that I married an adventurous woman who will go anywhere, any time, and try anything. She back-packed down to Greece when she was in college. My kids are like that, too, thank God. They seem to view this world as a wonderful buffet of experiences, opportunities, and challenges.
I think my parents' travelling days are over, but they are fortunate to have 5 kids who want to pitch in, when needed. My favorite Thai place makes damn good noodle soups, and I am gonna fight the traffic and bring them some.
The San Diego Union-Tribune sent a reporter to the northern suburb of Oceanside last night. The headline in the print paper: “Tax Concerns Spur Two Rallies: Tea party, nonpartisan groups stage separate Oceanside events”; online’s headline more honest: “Two political rallies raise their voices in Oceanside.”
The same story in both presentations: “more than 1500” showed up for the Tea Party rally, “more than 100” for the raise taxes rally. The one-hundred, riding on the publicity backs of the work by the 1500, given as much space as the 1500. The tax raisers, calling themselves “Rally for America”: “the nonpartisan group stood behind public service employees and unions and blamed government bailouts of big business, corporate tax breaks and cuts to services for hurting the middle class…”
Yeah, “nonpartisan”! The Associated Press’ April poll says that’s the stance of 29% of Americans. That means the other 71% are partisans. Yes, partisans of reversing the US descent into bankruptcy and destroying the wealth producing citizenry that pays the taxes and benefits all.
Today's fun activity is called "Spot The Ukelele." A ukelele has been cleverly hidden in each of the following tableaus. See if you can spot them.
It's pretty tough, I know. It's as if the videographer was deliberately trying to make it hard for us. I think I missed a few. I'm going to try again. Good luck!
The scriptures say that one man owed his lord a huge debt that he could not pay, and ask that the debt be forgiven. His lord forgave him. Soon the man demanded that a small amount of money that he had loaned to a friend be repaid, and when the friend could not pay the loan on time, he was punished. His lord heard about the injustice, and brought charges against him. The moral is that we should do unto others as we would that they do to us—and that we must practice what we preach before we preach.
If you are dealing with a problem where some other person has hurt you be sure that you pray to God that you will approach it in a Christian manner and never ask more than you would be willing to give. Look at your face in a mirror and make very sure you do not see a “better than thou attitude”.
Especially in my later years, I worry that I will slip along life’s way and ask you to do for Christ something that I am failing to do. I pray that God will not permit me to make this mistake.
From Paul, 2 Corinthians 5:
...from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sinfor us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We shall want to hold ourselves to the course of admitting the things we have done, meanwhile forgiving the wrongs done us, real or fancied. We should avoid extreme judgments, both of ourselves and of others involved. We must not exaggerate our defects or theirs. A quiet, objective view will be our steadfast aim. In all these situations we need self-restraint, honest analysis of what is involved, a willingness to admit when the fault is ours, and an equal willingness to forgive when the fault is elsewhere....that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness ... It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
As a little boy I would sing Tennessee Ernie Ford's "16 Tons" along with my hard-working father. The song lastingly impressed me at how difficult it can be to get ahead if under an exploitive thumb. Thank you Iowahawk for this updated version. I'll play it for my sons tonight.
We are at home, France will soon belong to us. There are already 10 million of us, soon there will be 20 million, you’ll see. You will not be able to stop us from doing anything. This country is ours. - French Muslim
Will the French give a damn when they decide to blow up Notre Dame?
On the way back from picking up my six-year old, Gavin, from break camp at the Y, I had the radio on to Hugh Hewitt. The guest, Mark Steyn, said "America is broke." Gavin asked me, "We're broke!?" Yes, I said, President Obama spent all your money and you'll have to pay it back to China. Gavin said, "there'll be nothing in the stores, and we'll be poor like Africa." Gavin then started crying. As we pulled into the driveway, Gavin asked me if I have President Obama's phone number. I said, "yes." Gavin said, "I want to call him and set him straight." That's my boy!
P.S.: We just returned from a restaurant. Gavin kept asking all through dinner when he can call President Obama to tell him he doesn't want to be poor or lose his country. -- I told Gavin that maybe there's a chance after next year's election he won't have to spend his life paying China. Gavin said OK. So, now we have to make that happen, for all the Gavins.
Re our post yesterday about the HuffPo lawsuit by the writers (about which Coyote observes:
In short, I would say that these folks are utterly without personal honor for filing the suit, but in the current state of labor law they potentially have a case. How sad that would be. And what would be next? A class action suit by product reviewers at Amazon for back wages?)
a reader noticed this hilarious rant:
This issue does not arise at Maggie's Farm. Being a commune, we all get paid exactly the same generous amount regardless of what we do: zero.
If you have college for all but don’t dumb down the standards, the dropout rate will stagger the imagination. If you have college for all and lower standards so that most can earn a degree, then you devalue college by transforming it into something more like a longer and (much) more expensive high school. So then the high-achievers will feel an even greater imperative to go to the next level. High school becomes middle school, college becomes high school, graduate school becomes college, and our prolonged adolescence continues and worsens.
I really don’t get up in the morning asking myself “Who can I piss off today?” It just seems to work out that way, many days.
How does that happen? Closest I can figure, it’s because I study many issues, form conclusions, and am willing to share them, regardless of whose ox is gored. But, how did I come to be like that? Ah, that’s the real question, I think.
Indeed, I think is part of the answer. I don’t tend to react so much as to try to think ahead, seeing the consequence of current events, particularly in light of training, experience, and history.
This served me well in business, frequently clearing new paths and accomplishing remarkable goals, often necessarily undiplomatic and forthright, while others filled their pockets and defended their comfortable positions. This also served me well in politics, raising issues that others didn’t until I did, then the matters going viral. I usually didn't receive rewards, many times the opposite, but I was satisfied to accomplish something.
But, why me?Others are smarter or stronger or smoother or richer or better positioned.
Others say it’s because I came up ballsy through the scrappy streets of Flatbush. Others say it’s because I came up poor and learned to succeed. Others say it’s because I grew up surrounded by immigrants from the carnage of WWII who shared their painful lessons about the consequences of allowing evil to spread.
On the other hand, others say it’s because I’m a schmuck who puts my ego before possible relationships or personal gain.
I say, “whatever.”I don’t try nor care to try to self-analyze nor to care if others analyze me. I’m just me. I really don’t feel I have any other alternative. I believe, at core, that there’s a very simple and measurable way to know whether I am me.
If I’m unhappy, it’s because I’m not thinking or behaving like me but as someone else wants me to be, or it’s because I’m goofing off.
Back in the ‘50s there was a very popular TV show, The Millionaire, where weekly an anonymous million-dollars was delivered to a deserving person, changing their lives. The following morning, across America, people discussed what they would do with a million-dollars. Then and now I couldn’t come up with an answer for more than a few tens of thousands of dollars. I’ve always been satisfied with whatever I’ve had, however meager, always loved a good hot dog, and been happy to sit in whatever seats in the sun at a ball game. So, being me seems to be just being satisfied with whatever I have, not being obsessed with what I don’t.
The rough and tumble upbringing may have contributed to my spine, but we all know many who didn’t rise above their really or perceived tough childhood. We try to help them, with a boost or inspiration, and some do rise to their potential. We also know many who had every advantage and squandered them or who feel they’re entitled, with little care for their impacts on others in further feathering their own nests. Despite disdain by most, they live in insulated circles, usually blithely going on about their ways. Sometimes they earn their comeuppance, but whine the loudest when they do.
So, what makes the difference for the majority of us? I say it is fortitude and resilience. At 10 my grandfather asked whether I was lazy. That struck me hard, and I never quit at anything again. In Vietnam, although I was rarely in real danger, I made a deal with G-d: Get me out of here in one piece and you’ll never hear another complaint from me. We both kept that deal.
Fortitude and resilience come down to that, making a promise to oneself and keeping it to rise above circumstances. To do so requires paying attention to what’s happening, outside and inside, and doing something about it. Passivity and timidity are the enemy, to be overcome.
So, I don’t wake up asking myself, “who can I piss off today?”I wake up asking myself, “what can I overcome today?” And, “how can I help others to overcome?” It just doesn’t occur to me to ask, “what’ll be the consequences for me?” When I hear myself or someone else describe their “reason” for avoiding difficult choices, I substitute the word “excuse”, and that’s usually more accurate.
Business School: Where Education Dies
We always contend that lawns are foolish things to have. Foolish, and unnatural. We prefer meadows and gardens, but everybody needs a place to play croquet or softball, or to lie in the sun with a book, growing your basal cell carcinomas and your liver spots. We reluctantly acknowledge that, in some suburban areas, a sweeping lawn is a social if not an aesthetic requirement. 
"De-thatching" is a completely useless and unnecessary activity. No healthy soil needs it, and a healthy soil is the key to a decent sod. "Thatch" - old grass - will rapidly decompose or be eaten by worms in a good lawn, recycling the nutrients and keeping your worms fat and happy.
Why did Jesus have to die?