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.
Winter sports are the best ones (shooting, hunting, Paddle, skiing, Squash, indoor tennis), but you have to be in shape. The Official Maggie's Farm Fitness Program (no TM) is neither for big muscle building nor a rigorous fitness regime to regain a neglected physique but is cheap, time-saving, and highly-effective for those in decent shape who want to tighten up for the black diamonds (but ask your physician whether it is appropriate for you before suing Maggie's Farm or me):
1. Want to lose flab? Go on a no-carb, or almost-no-carb, high meat diet. Carbs are the devil, the delicious fat on the meat is not. Salad is for rabbits, anorectics, or for fun. Fruits are pure carbs. A few kinds of vegetables are low in carbs and tasty, but not necessary except to fill the tummy. Little to no nutrition in them. If you are a food-worrier, take a multivit to relieve your anxiety.
2. Aerobics: 30-40 minutes/day (running, treadmill, spinning, erg, swimming, or especially elliptical), pushing it as tolerated
3. Lower body: Several sets of lunges and squats as tolerated.
4. Abs: Several sets of bicycle crunches, as tolerated.
5. Upper: Push up sets and free-weight (not heavy) military press sets
6. Back, etc: Sets of The Plank, pushing sets as tolerated.
This is fun, only takes an hour/day, and gets your head ready for a good day of mental work. To save time, you can alternate days, aerobics on one day and the rest on the next day. That's enough to tune up an already-fit body.
I wonder what our readers do to keep themselves from going to pot in an America in which fewer and fewer people do real labor.
Dr. Tom Sculco at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York gave my mother-in-law a brand new knee on the Friday night before Sandy. She's doing fine, but a new knee is not exactly pleasant for a while. She had a push-button morphine pump for a while, and the post-op PT would be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Between Sandy, no power, the hospital and the rehab, and the tree falling on their house, it's been a challenge around here.
Dr. Sculco is the pre-eminent orthopedic surgeon in the world, has a world class bedside manner too. Spreads love, interest in others, and care all around, as we all should do.
I like leftovers more than I like the first go-round, and I just like a little bit of turkey to go with my main deal of mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry relish, and gravy.
Which reminds me, I need to get out and buy up my annual supply of fresh cranberries. 10 bags, at least. Perhaps corner the New England market for cranberries, and make out like George Soros. I freeze them whole and use them year round.
Marco Rubio would not have won the Latino vote this year. A ticket of Condoleezza Rice and Herman Cain would not have won the black vote. Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley would not have won the Asian vote. Obama, in brilliant fashion, marketed himself as the above-the-fray great healer and our post-racial future, while his surrogates waged the most vicious race-, class-, gender-divisive campaign in history. More likely, what lost the race for Romney — a decent and strong candidate — was instead the failure of the white working classes to turn out to vote en masse.
Why so? I was in Michigan, near the Ohio border, for all of September, and each night was stunned by the variations in the class warfare ads, mostly brilliant and effective in painting Romney as your kill-Detroit, wet-suited, jet-ski-setting, multi-home employer — a veritable John Kerry, John Edwards, or Ted Kennedy — and “us” as a disabled, homeless, starving, and out-of-work collective victim as a result. Millions, who did not prefer Obama, just stayed home and thought that they would pass on voting for the guy who had too much money and gave them their pink slips. In 2004 they saw Kerry as the wet-suited wind surfer; in 2012 it was Romney.
On 13 September 1786, delegates from Providence County towns met in convention at Smithfield to consider the merchants’ continued opposition. The delegates attacked the subversive tendencies “of the mercantile Interest” and proposed that the legislature consider several plans, one of which called for a state-trade system that would have effectively eliminated the merchant class. As envisioned by a writer in the Providence Gazette, the state would own all stores, ships, wharves, shipyards, and the like. A state commission would send ships on fishing and mercantile ventures while severely limiting the importation of luxuries.
The legislature would “take the lead in this business, and will border it carried on in such manner, and under such regulations, as they in their wisdom shall think most convenient for the welfare, advantage, and well-being of the State.”
12:38 As he taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces,
12:39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!
12:40 They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."
12:41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.
12:42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.
12:43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.
12:44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."
Those who are willing to sacrifice and risk all will hold the future. Veterans have proven they are there. We will follow. We will lead. We will be there. Tens of millions of us. For everyone else, enlist in building a secure future. Get to work. Give it everything you have. Then some. That's what it takes. The future belongs to those with the courage and dedication to create it. America was built by rolling up our sleeves, with confidence, with faith, not by moaning, surrendering, or slinking away.
Popcorn time, but popcorn with a deathly flavor. Now that the MSM has their candidate elected, perhaps they might take interest in this colorful story. Colorful, except for the terrible and avoidable deaths of good, valiant, and innocent Americans who seem to have been pawns in a larger political game. They are the only heroes here.
The awful story has illicit sex, glory, spies, ambition and careerism, perfidy, dishonor, innocent deaths, Moslems, an election, the White House, the Pentagon, Hillary - everything. It's a Tom Clancy.
As for me, I question the timing with "King David." The cover-up always gets them. Best to admit tragic error right away, but people are less likely to admit calculated decisions.
Believe me, Petraeus' "betray us" was known well-before the FBI began snooping. Nobody gets a senior job without a meticulous colonoscopy. If you were ever cheating, they pursue every rumor and know all about it. Unless one is an elected Democrat, of course, in which case one's sexual history is irrelevant.
Funny how much the MSM loved the Hurricane Sandy story much better, despite the fact that it is really another Katrina story. Well, mostly white folks were flooded out, so who cares? No lasting narrative there. Where is Staten Island anyway? Mostly middle-class Republican Italians, right?
The Dems sure do have their number, don't they? Remember all of those Obama ads we thought we so vulgar, retarded, and full of lies? They worked on single women, and other people too. They knew who they were talking to. It should be remarkable that Romney did as well as he did.
It's easy to forget, living as many of us do among people who have an abiding interest in policy, economics, and politics, that most people have only a casual interest in these things except insofar as they might directly affect them or excite them with tingles.
Reagan had the knack of reaching the low- and high-information voter at the same time. He could deliver boob bait for the Bubbas and Bubbettes while offering an inspiring theory of freedom and free markets to the more sophisticated. Perhaps Obama does the same, with a theory of serfdom and government markets for the bubbettes, the poor-but-happy dependents, and urban metrosexuals. Serfdom is hip these days and dependency is cool. The New America.
This is h/t Black and Right. I think the fat gal just hopes she might need Planned Parenthood someday. Maybe if she gets him drunk enough on Tequila shots she can earn her free abortion.
When I posted that our loved Marianne had died, I included this photo of Marianne with the lady Marianne called her "surrogate daughter."
This morning Marianne's "surrogate daughter" Commented at the original post. I asked her permission to post her Comment more prominently, along with her name and contact info in case any Maggie's Farmers want to offer assistance with Marianne's loved husband Downs. We emailed each other and here it is. Bless you Colette. You are a Maggie's Farmer of the first order.
Comments: Thank you all for the kind words about Marianne. I am touched but not surprised by the kind and thoughtful comments. All of them spot on. She was all of that, and more, in person. Her maggies farm family was very special to her and many a time I would get a call to read a post by one of her pals. I was with Marianne and Downs almost every day of her illness. When things were tough she would tell me that the SEALS came and took her to a place by the sea to relax so she could face the next day. She never complained, never whined, and everytime I walked into her room I got a smile. I have been with Downs making the transition from a life with his beloved in his home of 40 years to a life without her and a move to assissted living at Bayou Manor, 4141 S. Braeswood #413, Houston, TX 77025. As one can imagine he is very lonesome for her. One doesn't often get to choose one's parents. I have been gifted by their presence in my life and honored that they chose me to be their surrogate daughter. S. Colette Chapman
Bruce, I remember Marianne speaking of you, Yep, that’s me, and please do. Marianne kept very close tabs on Downs and few suspected that he is suffering from dementia to the extent that he is. He lives in the present and the past, not tomorrow or yesterday. Without her day to day guidance he is not able to live independently in their home. He and I have our daily cheers and tears over missing her. They were the light of each others lives for 41 years. I only had her 27 years but I will cherish them all and I’m grateful to still have Downs and am devoted to keeping him as happy as I can for her as well as him.
S. Colette Chapman, Assistant to Gene Arensberg,Longpoint Land & Cattle Co.713-412-0971 cell, 281-431-6700 ranch office
The name Marine still and always will mean something special, the best, and our ranks and merits grow with each generation. In addition, maybe a bit out of form, but yesterday a young friend on active duty in the Navy in his pure dedication to why he serves, patriotic idealism that does not expect or demand recompense, reminded me of how I felt 44-years ago when I dropped out of grad school and enlisted in the USMC as an enlisted man. The USMC was all enlistees then. Now all branches are enlistees. Today's military are committed professionals fired by love of country. We are all Semper Fidelis now and I welcome the other servicemembers into our fraternity.
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention, Marines are still and will always be the best. And, Always Faithful, as you can see from this special story, special but not untypical.
“Hugh is that rare kind of actor who can make niceness interesting.” In his gentlemanliness and common decency, Bonneville’s Robert may be the most radical leading-man role on TV these days: an anti-antihero.
She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
I saw her upon a nearer view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty; A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A Creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A Being breathing thoughtful breath, A Traveler between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned, To warm, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright, With something of angelic light.
"Politics is downstream of culture." That's what the man says, and it certainly seems true these days. It's what I have been thinking. Sales, marketing, and branding matter.
Optics, rhetoric and perception matter. Though the new Democratic Party’s economic policies are based on antiquated ideas of early 20th century progressivism and European welfare states, it, not the GOP, is perceived as party of forward looking ideas.
If Republicans have any hope of persuading independents, they’ll need charismatic people, people who look and sound like a modern America and not a boardroom of Brahmin, because real-world competency is no match for fresh packaging and a good slogan. Welcome to democracy.
The fact is that the same people who run around instructing Republicans that they need to appeal to Latinos, blacks and women are aghast when exactly that happens. Are liberals agonizing this week over the defeat of Florida's Congressman Allen West -- a black man -- by a whiter than vanilla liberal named Patrick Murphy? Are they made furious by the defeat of a conservative black woman named Mia Love by yet another liberal white boy in Utah? Hardly. They are doing somersaults. Are they celebrating the fact that a woman --Michele Bachmann -- will be returning to Congress after defeating yet another one of those damnable white men, Democrat Jim Graves? Are they signing up for Palin in 2016? Are you kidding? They are beyond teeth-gratingly depressed and angry at the mere existence of both Bachmann and Palin
A book: Far From the Tree - "He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, multiple severe disabilities, with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender." http://www.amazon.com/Far-From-the-Tree-ebook/dp/B007EDOLJ2/ref=kinw_dp_ke
"I think a lot of stuff will be coming out over the next few weeks and months that was carefully kept off the radar before Election Day." http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/157280/
In The New Yorker, a Boston physician studies The Cheesecake Factory in an effort to decide whether Big Medicine can be more efficient and effective than the usual: Big Med. It begins:
It was Saturday night, and I was at the local Cheesecake Factory with my two teen-age daughters and three of their friends. You may know the chain: a hundred and sixty restaurants with a catalogue-like menu that, when I did a count, listed three hundred and eight dinner items (including the forty-nine on the “Skinnylicious” menu), plus a hundred and twenty-four choices of beverage. It’s a linen-napkin-and-tablecloth sort of place, but with something for everyone. There’s wine and wasabi-crusted ahi tuna, but there’s also buffalo wings and Bud Light. The kids ordered mostly comfort food—pot stickers, mini crab cakes, teriyaki chicken, Hawaiian pizza, pasta carbonara. I got a beet salad with goat cheese, white-bean hummus and warm flatbread, and the miso salmon.
The place is huge, but it’s invariably packed, and you can see why...
I'm no fan of Big Med - I practice Cottage Med and I prefer to do it my own way. However, it's a fascinating article and actually makes me want to try a meal at The Cheesecake Factory too. I had thought of it as a kind of cheesy place, but I love wasabi-crusted tuna as long as it is just seared.
When American people can get beyond any infantile expectations of government, it can be wonderful to see what they will do for eachother. Believe it or not, when last night's snowstorm was predicted, the tiny number of inept and seemingly useless FEMA people fled the flooded boroughs of NYC in their SUVs. (See BAD SIGN: FEMA office on Staten Island closes 'due to weather')
The list of fools who have brought this disaster upon us certainly also will include New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the gelatinous clown who (a) hogged up a prime time spot at the Republican convention to sing his own praises; (b) embraced Obama as the hero of Hurricane Sandy; and (c) then refused to appear at campaign events in support of Romney's presidential campaign. Good luck with the remainder of your political future, governor. It is unlikely Republicans shall soon forget your perfidious betrayal.
The electorate is complicated, and factors of culture and geography can dictate party identification more than any specific policy. And yes, the Republicans rolled out some ghastly candidates. But that shouldn’t fool anyone; there’s been a fundamental shift in how Americans view government’s role in society, and the GOP is losing the argument.
There was no theoretical hope peddling this time around. There was a record. And Barack Obama also promised the most explicitly left-wing agenda in presidential history — more government, more taxes, more dependency, more bailouts, more regulations — and he won easily. He promised universal health care, more crony “investments” in proven economic losers, more interference in markets — yet he cruised.
Conservatives may be shocked by statist slogans such as the Democratic National Convention’s “government’s the only thing that we all belong to,” and they may be scandalized when they hear a candidate say “you didn’t build that,” but their neighbors … well, not so much. When you can’t beat a candidate who — judging him on his own terms — owns both a brutal economic record on jobs (this is the first time since FDR that a president has won re-election with an unemployment rate this high) and the feeblest economic recovery in the nation’s history, it’s time to rethink what you’re doing.
...as concerned as the White House was during the last 30 days of the campaign, its polls never showed Mr. Obama slipping behind Mr. Romney, aides said. The president was helped in no small part by the tremendous amount of money the campaign built up, which had permitted him to pound his Republican rival before he had ever had a chance to fully introduce himself to the nation.
This is from before the snow began falling yesterday (ignore the House Finch on the upper right). I don't see these guys very often. Sorry for poor photo quality through the window.
Via Call Me Stormy blog, "Today’s dancer isn’t from the movies, but from real life. She’s Anastasia Skukhturova, a tall and luscious Russian, and this past weekend, she won the Second Annual Pole World Cup, defeating 60 pole-dancing competitors from 25 nations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil."
Winter sports are the best ones (shooting, hunting, Paddle, skiing, Squash, indoor tennis), but you have to be in shape. The Official Maggie's Farm Fitness Program (no TM) is neither for big muscle building nor a rigorous fitness regime to regain a neglected physique but is cheap, time-saving, and highly-effective for those in decent shape who want to tighten up for the black diamonds (but ask your physician whether it is appropriate for you before suing Maggie's Farm or me):
At last count, we have 32 people, friends and family, coming for Thanksgiving. Ages 4 to 86.
Popcorn time, but popcorn with a deathly flavor. Now that the MSM has their candidate elected, perhaps they might 
She was a Phantom of Delight
Is There Such a Thing 
FEMA: 
