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.
Barack Obama will be remembered not so much for being the nation’s first African-American president, or even the man who ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden, or even for his Obamacare, but as the president who grew government the largest, ran up the largest deficits during any presidential tenure, and laid out most candidly and confidently the argument of why the United States is an intrinsically unfair society and how that must be remedied by government.
Governments are bad at compassion, in part because it is a candle to power-seeking moths. The heavy lifting of compassion belongs in the private sector, where it is divorced from the impulse to impose continually greater levels of control.
Mrs. BD thought that some of our readers, especially those remote from NYC, might like a sample of the retrospective, Savage Beauty, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which ends next week. She particularly singled out ex-New Yorker Marianne.
The show is a big deal. It has been sold out since the opening, and yesterday you had to wait in line 2-3 hrs to get in (unless a member of the Met, as we are, in which case you go right past the lines. It was crowded.).
I liked the show. We usually use those good headphone things, but, for some reason, we did not this time.
This Scotsman, who recently committed suicide, was quite an artist. All the husbands and boyfriends there seemed interested to look, as was I (up to a point). It would have been more fun with live models wearing the things.
They put on a remarkably dramatic presentation of McQueen's stuff with what I presume is edgy-artsy-fashionista music and spooky lighting. My photos are not very good because pics were not technically allowed so I had to be discreet. (I do it for you, our readers.)
And yes, I was rewarded with a good lunch afterwards.
How anybody can drive up Route 91 through Vermont without stopping at Curtis' place (just west off the Putney exit, next to Ron's gas station) for some authentic Mississippi barbecue is beyond me. Curtis is a Mississippi-born and bred barbecuemaster, but he spends spring to fall in Putney, VT (of all places), cooking over hardwood smoke all day long, with his pet pigand dog following him around the smoky pit. Now he sells his own Curtis' Root Beer and Barbecue Sauce too - but only at his place.
He is a busy old codger, but he will chat with you if you have anything worth saying to him.
You do not see many places like this in New England.
"Rep. Barney Frank of Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac fame told Neil Cavuto this morning that if Moody’s downgrades the US debt, “We just don’t pay much attention to them… Don’t sell.” He then went on to blame the ratings agencies for ignoring the mortgage crisis… that he helped create. Unreal."
14:13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
14:14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
14:15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."
14:16 Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."
14:17 They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."
14:18 And he said, "Bring them here to me."
14:19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
14:20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.
14:21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
They are supported by honor, but not enforceable in court. Hence the word "gentleman." One would like to think that gentlemen still keep their word:
Informal, oral understanding resting on the sense of personal honor of the involved parties. Generally, such agreements are not enforceable through courts.
Have you heard Trombone Shorty? I enjoyed hearing him and his band live, last summer. Had a quick chat with him, too, after the set. He is a sweetheart, and very humble despite being such a prodigy and, now, a star.
I know folks who will drive 40 minutes to the Red Rooster Drive-In on Route 22 in Brewster, NY, when they get a jones for their burgers, fries, and onion rings - all made to order, the old-fashioned way. Slow food. Good hot dogs too. Worth a trip from Great Falls, or Phoenix.
Is it over-rated? Maybe. I love it, though.
The place is unchanged since the 50s. There is really no seating, but lots of picnic benches outside. Or eat in the pick-up and drip juice and ketchup on your shirt in the manly American-style.
Mrs. BD is dragging me to see this. I hope I at least get a good NYC lunch out of this because fashion is not really my thing. Being a decent husband is.
Apparently it is tough to get into the show without being a member, which we are. Very long lines, otherwise. I think NYC has more fashionistas per square mile than either Paris or Milan.
I am weary. After nearly 30 years in private practice, I am not sure which straw broke the camel’s back, but it is most surely broken. It is a weariness born of 14 hour days; of dictating charts and finishing paperwork until 8 or 9 pm each night, after starting the day at 7 am; of endless audits by the insurance industry and Medicare; of the constant threat of litigation; of the crushing burden of one more federal requirement mandated but never recompensed; of a host of ever-expanding administrative burdens having nothing to do with patient care, and everything to do with bureaucratic micromanagement of the profession. And this before we have even begun to see the nightmare which Obamacare will inflict. Camels weren’t designed to carry such a load.
But the change (ie the change Dr. Bob is making) is nevertheless much anticipated in a host of other ways, with its reduced administrative and regulatory burdens, and substantial increase in free time. For me, the war is over: I have fought the good fight, and no longer see it as profitable to battle the inexorable forces which threaten to crush a beloved profession.
It's taken a few years for my hunting pal to get his hunting getaway in the wilds of upstate New York into usable shape. He has been doing most of the work himself.
I do not know why he did not throw a match onto the old thing and start fresh. Probably because he is the sort of guy to do things his way, the hard way, preserving the old as best he can.
"Studies show" that, once 10% of a population accepts a notion, it acquires a sturdy enough foothold to have a chance to widely penetrate the population. That's why cranky ideas and crazy notions - along with worthy notions - become part of popular culture.
Politicians know this, which is why they are so full of BS. Their tactic is to repeat a meme until it's accepted by a quorum, even if you Maggie's Farmers know better. You can get 10% of people to believe that the moon is made of Roquefort, that vaccinations cause autism, that JFK's assassination was a conspiracy, or that the planet is about to burn up due to cars.
Another: Lucian Freud: Art without the feel-good factor - No other artist portrays his subjects with such intense and relentless honesty. But can we love the uncomfortable art of Lucian Freud?
In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.
Computer models are not reality. They are virtual realities. How did all the fancy computer modeling work out for the economy? Computer models are toys for grown-ups.
On this video, Dr. Buziszewski teaches, or preaches, what I have been teaching and preaching for years about the region in which religion, morality, and psychology are intertwined, inseparable. This is a good primer on the topic.
Whether you agree or not, it's an important concept.
I have posted about codes of behavior here, several times. It is an important subject for me, and it seems to me that honor is a core concept in Western Civilization (I cannot speak for alien civilizations because I am still struggling to understand my own.). U VA seems to be dealing with this subject now. One quote:
Complaints that a strict Honor Code represent an antiquated, all male, aristocratic standard appropriate only to the slave-holding ante-bellum South in which it originated, that it needs to be replaced by a new standard more attuned to a diverse community with “nuanced perspectives on crime and punishment” sounds more than odd coming from the Grounds of UVa, where “Mr. Jefferson” is not so much a ghost as a virtually live presence. The Declaration of Independence, after all, another "old boy" product, can be described in exactly the same terms.
Perhaps the psychotics at the otherwise wonderful U VA are not aware thatjobs have honor codes, citizenship has an honor code, all relationships have honor codes, science has honor codes, the professions and business have honor codes, supposedly academia has honor codes, every organization and club has an honor code, even the Mafia has honor codes - everything in civilized life is based on honor codes, whether implicit or explicit. That's why it's called "civilized".
Violate them at your peril. At the least, ostracism and social avoidance are unpleasant consequences of violations of mannerly codes, appropriateness codes, and honor codes. In real daily life, just one screw up often is fatal because nobody forgets. The Law only covers the most extreme violations of the codes.
Seems to me that people are getting most of their music-listening through all sorts of devices other than their good old music systems.
As many have done, I went through a music system phase and bought some very fine audiophile speakers and amps along the way (not to this extent, and I never bought into the surround sound fad).
However, I seem to use them less and less often, and my sizeable and eclectic CD collection gathers dust. I'd rather spend money on going to live music anyway.
Pic is of Legacy Focus speakers, which I own but do not use hardly enough.
I'm mostly white (if you ignore a little American Injun blood), and yet cops keep pulling me over because they are profiling me and my red Lamborghini. Is it my ride, or are they detecting my inner Injun?
A federal wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated for scientific misconduct, possibly over the veracity of that article.
So I understand that my country is about to become an insolvent failed state, plunging over the cliff into abject bankruptcy. On the other hand, I just discovered a great video of the Josie and the Pussycats theme song rendered in a mash-up of different musical styles. Fellow Americans, we face great challenges; but we must never lose sight of what made us a great nation.
Looking for love in all the wrong places. It's a remarkable story of a young lion, with a tragic ending. Young males wander to find mates and new territory, but 1800 miles?
Many people, including me, were hoping this lion's presence might indicate a small, hidden breeding population in the Northeast, in the Adirondacks or someplace. Alas, not so.
The Democratic party loves taking credit for the social safety net, but they have proven to be completely irresponsible trustees, squandering the trust by borrowing against the sum, and then borrowing against the debt to fund an entirely separate agenda. What began as security for workers mutated into a bureaucracy that existed for its own sake expanding benefits and spending to bulk up its power and influence.
The old worker centered universe was turned upside down. Private sector unions gave way to public sector unions. A non-union public was suddenly forced to subsidize the municipal crony unions of Democratic politicians. Corporate health insurance became mandatory. Illegal aliens showed up for the free health insurance. And the taxpayer kept picking up the tab. Now the system is on the brink, and the trustees have no answer except more spending and a few cuts.
The New Deal had always been rotten with wealth redistribution calculations, but it wasn't unfeasible until fiscal responsibility went completely out the window. The Potemkin Village economics had been there in the 1930's, the unconstitutional mandates, the overreaching regulations and the share the wealth platform. But they had at least used a nation with a solid industrial base and birth rate as their base. Both of those have been sinking for decades, even as spending has been growing...
PTSD is one of those fad diagnoses which won many adherents in the past ten years, even gaining admission to the DSM.
As I have written before, very few of the descriptive Psychiatric diagnoses have validity - all most of them (with a handful of notable exceptions) have is varying degrees of reliability. In my field, a diagnosis does not mean a disease in the usual medical sense (which is why we call them "disorders").
What is termed PTSD is presumed to be a collection of complaints which some (but not most) people experience following significant emotional trauma. There is no doubt that people are distressed by, and, I think, permanently altered by significant emotional trauma. It doesn't have to be bad experiences in combat, because many things in life can constitute emotional trauma (depending on the person's psychological make-up). The reason PTSD is so often studied in combat vets is because that's where the research money is. (In the past, such symptoms were classed as ""nervous in the service," "combat fatigue," "shell shock," "traumatic neurosis," and the like.)
To anyone familiar with this Golden Age, roughly spanning the eighth through the thirteenth centuries a.d., the disparity between the intellectual achievements of the Middle East then and now — particularly relative to the rest of the world — is staggering indeed. In his 2002 book What Went Wrong?, historian Bernard Lewis notes that “for many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement.” “Nothing in Europe,” notes Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, “could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600.” Algebra, algorithm, alchemy, alcohol, alkali, nadir, zenith, coffee, and lemon: these words all derive from Arabic, reflecting Islam’s contribution to the West.
Today, however, the spirit of science in the Muslim world is as dry as the desert.
Well, I found it. I found the ultimate retirement home, and the most amazing thing is that it's free. Yes, it's state-subsidized, but so what? It's one thing to claim, "I don't take no handouts, I'm doin' it all on my own!" when you're young, but what happens when you get old and frail and can't jump through those hoops of fire like you could when you were younger? And what about those zillions of dollars in taxes you paid over a lifetime and didn't get jack shit in return? Maybe it's time the gub'mint gave a little something back, hmm? I say, yes!
I took some photos of the place when I was touring it the other day, and thought I'd pass them along in case you, too, are thinking of retirement plans. Granted, it's no Ritz By The Sea, but it's still upscale and classy, as you'll see. And, of course, it's free.
First, the rooms:
Pretty nice, eh? Each 'suite', as they're called, has its own tiled bathroom, mini-fridge and flat-screen TV. I can't remember if Bob, our tour guide, said they also have a high-speed Internet connection, but I presume so.
There's more after the fold — and you just won't believe the last picture!
I don't blame Mitt entirely for this fiasco because has was dealing with a solidly-Dem government, but I do blame him some.
If government wants to take over control of a huge area of citizens' lives, and of the economy, they can't do it in a half-assed way that injures and distorts markets and eliminates choice. They have to do it all-out and eliminate markets and choice entirely, as does Medicare (which we still have in the US, thanks to Chinese loans).
I don't think Mitt intended RomneyCare to be a stalking horse for a government take-over of all medical care in Massachusetts, but it is set up to make that inevitable. ObamaCare, on the other hand, is designed to cause markets to fail so that government can step in. Many proponents admitted as much. It's the long view.
If you tell an insurance company what products they may offer, they must cover, and what they can charge for the insurance, then there is no market, no choice...and soon, no company.
No rational person can look at Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and now Obamacare and actually believe that these programs can be funded for 50 more years. Yet there isn’t a substantive movement from either political party’s leadership to stop them.
At a critical time in its history, the country has as its president a man unqualified and unable to lead. Even the left has begun to finally question their allegiance to Barack Obama, and more importantly, his allegiance to them. More Americans, some in the media, are openly asking if the president is a liar, with the word mendacity frequently used in describing his actions. (snip) For the first time in Barack Obama's life, he is accountable, and upon his shoulders rest the lives and fortunes of millions in the United States and the world.
It seems like a waste of Maggie's Farm's precious paper and ink to simply forward the efforts of tediously brilliant folks like Mead, Steyn, and VDH. Even had I the time, I could not do what they do. From VDH's Our Ten-Trillion-Dollar Man:
So we have what we have always had — the most partisan and the least experienced man in the U.S. Senate as president, elected by a perfect storm of events (e.g., the 2008 meltdown, the media adulation, the anemic McCain candidacy, the furor over Bush and the Iraq war, the orphaned election without a single incumbent, etc.), in which no one was allowed to ask “Who is this stranger?” and “What has he ever done?”, in which the media finally gave up its last shred of impartiality and became a megaphone, as we were assured that Mr. Obama’s most intimate associates were really total strangers, his once praised avid church-going was merely sporadic, his most partisan voting record was in truth bipartisan, and his bad habits of saying disturbing things were simply a symptom of racialist, raise-the-bar nitpicking on behalf of his Neanderthal critics.
In short, Obama came into office with all the Carteresque assumptions on how to take over a private-sector economy and outsource foreign policy to international bodies. He now finds to his utter amazement — as Carter discovered in late 1979 after Teheran, Afghanistan, and Central America — that in the real world none of what worked in word worked in deed. Those who assured Obama that his Harvard lounge fantasies were real have either quit, are now offering new advice, or are criticizing him for once taking them at their word.
and
Obama, you see, is our nemesis. He is a totem, the logical manifestation of a warped media, the reification of some crazy — and arrogant — ideas about redistributive politics, the statist economy, and cultural and social life that permeated American life the last forty years. He is the president with a 1,000 faces that we have all seen at work, on TV, throughout American life, and at some point the odds determined that we had to have a rendezvous with him— perhaps a catharsis to teach us the wages of Keynesian debt, of a social policy contrary to human nature with its equality of result doctrines, of an all-powerful, all-growing unaccountable government, of the now hip ambiguity about past American protocols and history. Obama is the exaggeration of all the dubious ideas that arose since the 1960s — brought to fruition on his watch, delivered by mellifluous cadences by an untouchable persona.
In fact, a Barack Obama was long overdue. Had he not appeared out of nowhere in 2008, we would have surely had to invent him.
An overwhelming majority of those polled would not want to be 20 again. The question: “Knowing no more than you did then, would you want to be 20 again?” The key is in making the choice knowing what the respondents do now.
This wasn’t a scientific poll but was random across almost anyone I met and had a conversation with during the past month, successful in whatever field from business to arts to teaching; economically stressed from illegal immigrants to trades people to clerks to unemployed; politically conservative, liberal, somewhere in between, indifferent; married, single, happy, sad.
About 20% said they’d choose to be 20 again, about half confident and about half wanting to feel free like when they were 20. About 30% didn’t want to repeat the same or similar early errors, feeling their personalities would be the same. Then, half of the respondents just believe that it would be far tougher to get ahead now than whenever then was when they were 20. Those with grown children went on about how difficult it is for their sons and daughters to even get a toehold, and those with young children remarked about what they are seeing around them and deeply worry about their children’s future prospects.
Delving a little deeper into my respondents’ concerns about their children’s futures: Our children’s future being heavily mortgaged is at the core of the current Washington wrangles, and that is recognized although feeling powerless to affect it or almost hopeless that real reforms will happen. Another core issue is, as one respondent commented, “even with a professional degree, my kid is going to have to be working for the government.” Directly or indirectly through burdensome, intrusive and nitpicking regulations.
I’d be interested in hearing your comments.
Meanwhile, here’s a video shot for PowerLine’s contest, called “Child Abuse.”
Pic is a crowded Cape Cod beach - the bay, at Wellfleet. Duck Harbor. You can walk it for hours, if you bring enough water. Can take dogs there, off leash of course. Do dogs love that? Guess. At low tide, it is dog heaven.
Mitcham's Provincetown Seafood Cookbook. His Kale Soup and Haddock Amondine, along with all the rest of his Portuguese-influenced recipes - are immortal, but his Baked Stuffed Cod is the best. The whole Cape area has lots of Portuguese descended from the visiting Cod fishermen (Emeril, from Fall River, is one.) Interesting fellow, Mitcham. Highly productive in his life; rarely, if ever, sober from what I heard. Dead now, at 77.
I have a few other out of print Cape Cod area history books that I won't link because even Abe's doesn't have then.
Gerard would be amused to know that I "met" Janis once, at good old Max's Kansas City in NYC just off Union Square. I was there with some college friends, late, when she came in with a couple of guys from her band. She pulls up a stool next to mine, said "Hey" to acknowledge me, and ordered a couple of shots of Wild Turkey and a beer. She looked like a mess. I think they were all stoned out of their minds.
Those were the days. I went to Woodstock too. It sucked. Trust me. The best thing about going turned out to be being able to say I went.
A house has been made so "energy-efficent" that it can't go two weeks without dehumidification, humidification, heating, cooling, mechanical ventilation, sump-pumping, and ten other things I'm too weary to write.
We were all better off before we "fixed" houses, and housing.
...we have a lot of independent evidence (including my own experience) that many small and middle sized companies have changed their hiring plans based on costs and uncertainties of Obamacare.
Our ruling class’s agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof. Like left-wing parties always and everywhere, it is a “machine,” that is, based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank-and-file activists with modest livelihoods and enhance mightily the upper levels’ wealth. Because this is so, whatever else such parties might accomplish, they must feed the machine by transferring money or jobs or privileges—civic as well as economic—to the party’s clients, directly or indirectly. This, incidentally, is close to Aristotle’s view of democracy.
I have seen a lot about schools lately on these internets, and it causes me to reflect on my medical and pre-medical education.
Unlike today, when I went to medical school there were a few Asians, lots of Jewish boys, only about 20% girls, and almost no black kids. That was not very long ago, either.
My medical college expected a 20% flunk-out, wash-out, or drop-out rate. In pre-med, of course, it's much worse than that: most quit after their first B or B+ in college (there was no grade inflation then) and went off to do other things. In med school, one lousy grade, or one lousy report from a prof, and you were outta there. Packing your bags with profound humiliation. People who couldn't take the pressure just disappeared without a trace, like somebody falling off a ship.
For each course or clinical rotation, we had both written and oral exams. The oral exams, maybe, were the toughest, because the profs sought the limits of your knowledge, which they could only do by pushing past your limits, making you painfully aware of your ignorance (the oral exams were administered by panels of senior docs who were checking to make sure the junior profs were doing their jobs).
Interest and fear were the motivations. Especially fear, because we all wanted to be docs of some sort. At the same time, we enjoyed acquiring the priestly expertise. Nuns with rulers were not required.
There is an optimal level of anxiety at which a person learns best - high, but not so high as to short-circuit the synapses. The problem is, that point varies for every individual. For doctors, pilots, ship captains, and the like, you need people with high anxiety tolerance who do not lose it or get confused when the anxiety level ramps up and the sh-t hits the fan.
My point, however, was to raise the topic of fear in education. I believe it to be a great motivator, even for those highly self-motivated students but especially for those who are not. Most kids in most schools are the latter.
Do we really know how kids would learn if, instead of having mandatory education, we threw them out of school if they did not measure up or take advantage of the incredible opportunities for learning we offer everybody in America? I mean, from High School and on. Problem is, they need those warm bodies to get the dollars.
A few readers have advised me to check out the music of the late Amy Winehouse. Here's one (the subsequent one on Youtube, Monkey Man, is kinda cool too).
Jeffrey Pelt in Hunt For Red October: "I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheater and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops." More memorable quotes from the wonderful film here.
... true to the concept, the Sunday Review section features a cover page boldly splashed with a proposal to move the burgeoning nanny state into further regulation of what we may and may not eat. Penned by Mark Bittman, an erstwhile Sunday writer of rabbit-food recipes, the article condemns Americans' food and drink choices and proposes to control them via the means of taxation -- picking winners and losers in the marketplace much in the way that regulation is attempting to control the winners and losers in the light bulb industry.
...appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn't matter, because the fixes are not really their problem. Their mission is not public health but profit, so they'll continue to sell the health-damaging food that's most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise. That "other force" should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix.
Some of my slightly provocative Lib friends have been emailing me to make the point that this Norwegian proves that Christians are terrorists, or something like that. "What more proof do you need?"
It's best never to take the bait, because it is hopeless.
They are clearly delighted that the perpetrator was not a Moslem. It's The Narrative, you know. Before I read the details, I did assume it was a Jihad-type thing. Sounded like it he learned it from them.
I think I will do some like totally random slide shows from my old pics this summer on weekends - if only for my own and for my family's amusement. "Show and Tell." It's tough to have ideas on summer weekends. I love to go places - both the old and familiar, and the new and astonishing. Anywhere is interesting to me. "Go Go Hi Ho!" as my friend says. That's the spirit.
We check in with Dinocrat almost daily. He seems as fond of Alison Krause and Keith Jarrett as I am, so I decided to check his profile. Not too shabby.
13:31 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;
13:32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."
13:33 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
13:44 "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
13:45 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls;
13:46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
13:47 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind;
13:48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.
13:49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous
13:50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
13:51 "Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes."
13:52 And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."
This guy is a new breed of preacher. Here's an engaging sermon for ya today (h/t reader). Two quotes: "If you're married, you are married to somebody with quirks." Also, "The lack of fighting in a marriage worries me."
Will serve my ceviche in shallow bowls, on Boston Lettuce, using one large shrimp each as a garnish along with orange slices and avocado slices. Hope I used enough jalopeno and garlic. Bowl of salty chips, of course, and I am ready to make both virgin and regular Margueritas. Watermelon for dessert.
Mrs. BD got me some cool Marguerita glasses in Mexico which she likes to use for fruit with tiny scoops of Haagen Dazs coconut gelato on top.
Update: It was very good. Next time, more red onion, more garlic, more salt, and more jalapeno.
It's the time of year when my family's food interests turn to mollusks and crustaceans. It seems to be in their blood.
Oysters preferably on the half-shell, and cherrystones only on the half-shell. About that red seafood sauce with horseradish, for shrimp and clams and oysters etc - it is vulgar, overpowering stuff, but we love it anyway. It is the American wasabi.
Crabs: up north, we prefer them in their moulting soft-shell form, lightly sauteed in olive oil, butter, parsley, a touch of garlic, and white wine: three per person - it's the frugal way to eat the magnificent east coast Blue Crab because you eat the whole darn thing, shell, feathers and all - a perfect combination of crunch and succulence. I know how you pick at them on the Chesapeake - and that is damn good, but too much work.
Lobsters: We eat them as a gala treat but not too often as it is easy to grow tired of them. Always buy the big ones - one 6 lb. lobster has double the meat of six one-lb. lobsters (which are mostly shell). If they have the big ones, get the biggest and let them steam 'em for you. The story that the big ones are tougher than the babies is pure myth and an evil lie - the only tough lobster is a live one without the rubber bands. Plus the big guys are as dramatic on the table as a Thanksgiving turkey or a crown roast of lamb. Oh, did I mention that you never boil a lobster - you steam them. Boiling them washes half of their favor out of them. Toss the shells in the freezer, afterwards, and use them in your next fish stock.
Clam chowder - you have to have your own family recipe, but red clam chowder is disgusting.
Steamers? The best. Just use a few cups of water, and keep the clams above the water. Don't overcook 'em, or they will get too chewy. And do not dip them in butter - it overpowers their salt-marshy goodness. Best part? That broth. When you drink that hot broth out of a heavy mug you feel like you are reuniting with Mother Ocean - and you are. Left-over broth? To the freezer, for fish stock, along with steamer clam shells, fish heads and bones, lobster shells, etc. Wow.
And a simple oyster stew with heavy cream and paprika is nirvana - you must use large oysters, and never overcook them - just until they warm up and the edges begin to curl. The Oyster Bar (since 1913) makes the best oyster stew in the world in their custom-made, 100 year-old oyster stew steaming machines. Worth a trip to NYC and Grand Central Station just to sample their world-wide oysters - and that simple, heavenly stew. Poor-Boys and fried oysters? They aren't a bad thing at all, but only with those southern, less subtle oysters which come shelled in a container. The kind we use for oyster stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey.
And what is the finest oyster in the world? That's right, the ethereal Wellfleet Oyster, bathed in the fresh water from the Herring River. But don't try to cook him - it's a crime to do so, or should be. But we have done it - shame on us. Oysters Rockefeller from Wellfleet oysters.
Wines for these splendid delicacies from the sea? Champaigne is my first choice, and a Viognier is my second choice. Third choice - a French Chablis. Chardonnay with shellfish? No, no, no: try it and find out - they do not mix. Red wine with seafood? Certainly, if you feel like it. Who cares? Red surely is good with fish. I, for one, will not eat salt-water fish with white wine, but shellfish - for certain. Champaigne with steamers? Very cool; very refined. Many prefer beer, though. (Steamers are the East Coast Buffalo Chicken Wings - only better.)
Image: a favorite Cape Cod salt marsh in Wellfleet, MA, full of steamer clams. You can fill a wire basket in 20 minutes, and come home hcovered with the black gooey happy marsh mud, looking something like this:
Pic is some of my young relatives, on Cape Cod. High tide on the ocean beaches keeps people mostly out of the water. Low tide is for swimming, body surfing, and lolling in the chilly water. The Cape Cod Bay side is sort of the opposite, and plenty warmer too, so it all works out.
Their ugliness seems to be escalating day by day, and with it the dishonesty, distortions, and bullying anger of their mainstream-media fellow travelers. There’s a reason for this, I think. It’s the increasingly apparent failure of Barack Obama. With the notable exception of Osama bin Laden’s execution, the Obama presidency has resembled nothing so much as an episode of Mr. Bean, one slapstick misadventure after another.
Best Road Burger in the Northeast
Some studies say coffee is good for you; others say it's bad. 
Bullet 
Seems to me that people are getting most of their music-listening through all sorts of devices other than their good old music systems. 
Good Yankee humor via
I have seen a lot about schools lately on these internets, and it causes me to reflect on my medical and pre-medical education. 
It's the time of year when my family's food interests turn to mollusks and crustaceans. It seems to be in their blood. 
