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.
Wodehouse's Bertie and Jeeves novels are surely the most delightful, amusing, innocent, and refreshing fiction ever written in graceful, wry English.
Christopher Buckley reviews Wodehouse's life and writing: Yours Ever, Plum: The Letters and Life of P.G. Wodehouse. For a man who sought little but serenity, the presence of his wife and his dogs, and books, he had an eventful life.
From one of his letters:
“I sometimes feel,” Wodehouse wrote Townend in 1933, “as if I were a case of infantilism. I seem mentally so exactly as I was then [at school]. All my ideas and ideals are the same. I still think the Bedford [cricket] match is the most important thing in the world.”
A few random quotes from the books:
As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor - and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.
It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.
I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.
Jeeves lugged my purple socks out of the drawer as if he were a vegetarian fishing a caterpillar out of his salad.
I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast.
Anybody can talk me round. If I were in a Trappist monastery, the first thing that would happen would be that some smooth performer would lure me into some frightful idiocy against my better judgment by means of the deaf-and-dumb language.
In a marathon session yesterday, politicians allowed people from Newtown and various other lobbying organizations to state their views about guns. Several of the more emotionally compelling statements made the press and have been forced on an unsuspecting public, as a means to push harsher gun control laws. One statement in particular struck me as I watched the news this morning. Susie Ehrens, whose daughter survived the attack, made the following plea:
“We stop being the world’s greatest country when we allow our most vulnerable citizens to be slaughtered because we might offend people by taking away their guns. We stop being something to be proud of when we love our guns more than we love our children.”
It is heartfelt sentiment with a strong statement. I have no doubt many people, many parents in particular, were moved closer to supporting gun control as a result. Certainly, it is a statement which hit me hard - do I really love guns more than I love children? So much so that I'm willing to let children die just because I support the freedom to bear arms?
Of course not. After thinking about this statement, I believed a response was needed. Mainly because it is factually inaccurate, at least in terms of how it describes me, and it is logically flawed, in general.
I can picture the millions of chickens, pigs, cattle, sheep, etc. of the American farms gloriously set free in downtown Oakland, but I suspect they would all quickly end up in peoples' stew pots or hit by cars.
What these people perhaps do not deal with is the simple fact that none of these animals would exist at all without meat and dairy farms.
Worse of all, these annoying people ignore the far worse, massive animal genocide brought about by antibiotic medicines. Why protest the slaughter of only big animals? Does nobody care about the little animals? Are they that heartless?
In 1997, at the age of 27, I washed up at my parents’ house, done with school, and out of money. All I had to my name was and three humanities degrees, (B.A. Rhetoric, M.A. Literature, M.F.A Creative Writing) and a dog.
It was a dark time, both figuratively and literally because my parents had downsized since I’d first gone away for college and the only room for me in the new house was the basement. When I snapped the lights off at night, the blackness was total, roughly reflective of both my spirit and my prospects. In bed, I would wave my hand in front of my face, unable to make out even the faintest image. If you want to take that as a metaphor for my employment prospects, so be it.
In the last thirty years the transformation of the American economy has contributed to income polarization. The old industrial middle class, based on mass employment in unionized oligopolies, has been hollowed out, and no comparable source of stable high income employment has emerged. Large groups in America today are living on transfers from the profits of the healthy portions of the private sector recycled through government spending and subsidies. It is easy to see how rational people can conclude that the only hope of preserving mass prosperity in America comes from transfers and subsidies. If we add to this the belief that only a powerful and intrusive regulatory state can prevent destructive climate change, then the case for the blue utopia looks ironclad. To save the planet, save the middle class and provide American minorities and single mothers with the basic elements of an acceptable life, we must set up a far more powerful federal government than we have ever known, and give it sweeping powers over the production and distribution of wealth.
It's a month or two early to post about bird migration, particularly passerine migration, here in the northern hemisphere, but I did find this excellent review of the most recent science on the topic:
I am confused today by all I have been reading about illegal immigration. Being somewhat Yankee-biased, I tend to feel that the US needs no immigrants from anywhere anymore. Just spend a weekend in NYC and then tell me we need more foreigners around. Half the people you see were born elsewhere, and have no clue what America is all about. They are just using us, trying to get on one gravy train or another. Call me a xenophobe. I don't mind, because I like foreigners - in their own countries and in their own cultures. I do not want my culture changed, or to feel like a stranger in my own country. It's mine, and it is not open to the general global public.
All the Russians too. Sheesh. Unpleasant, loud people without manners and Soviet-style (ie, no) morals. Legal too, I assume, which means they went through the process. They may have to take a test, but there is no civility test. Those lovely Russki girls are silky sociopaths, well-trained in the Soviet system to ignore law and civilization and to follow the money. The turbaned Sikh cab drivers from Whereizitstan are far more pleasant and dignified, but what the heck? We have unemployed college grads who could drive cabs and could probably figure out how to find JFK airport from the Plaza Hotel.
Most nations do not permit any. Just try emigrating to Japan, France, Britain, Sweden, Russia, or Mexico from the US. Can't be done. As we say here, "Don't be lazy, people. Fix your own darn homeland."
If NYC deregulated housing, there would be affordable housing for everybody. Classic example of a government fix of a temporary problem creating a permanent shortage problem. Markets work when government stays out of the way.
Docs can't "do less" without tort reform. Defensive medicine is a huge factor in medicine today. Many claim it's 30-50% of billings. Other major wastes? Most preventive medicine, and annual physicals. Studies prove it.
By a 75% to 19% margin, Latinos are more likely to believe in a bigger government, with more services, to a smaller one. President Obama got 75% of the Latino vote in the LD election eve poll – a perfect match.
Only somebody like Rubio can preach the American gospel to hispanic immigrants. Past large waves of immigrants (Swedes, Jews, Irish, Poles, Italians, Cubans) got the memo, but in the era of big government, this wave doesn't get it.
"One important implication of our analysis is that for many institutions, demand-side market pressure may not compel investment in academic quality, but rather in consumption amenities," write the authors, three University of Michigan scholars.
What could potentially crash ObamaCare -- if the news gets out -- is the fact that it's much cheaper to pay the ObamaCare penalty than it is to pay for insurance, combined with the fact (which Politifact ignores) that ObamaCare removes the biggest incentive to purchase insurance -- the pre-existing condition clause.
I am opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants, partly because it is indeed a crime and we are a nation of law (why begin citizenship as a Federal criminal when there are legal ways to do it?), and partly because I have seen what five-ten year hoops and expenses legal immigrants to the US need to go through, such as physicians from Canada and the UK, and programming geniuses from Singapore. Also, because I believe that vast numbers of immigrants cannot be assimilated. (Case in point: Mexifornia. Case in point: Europistan. Case in point: Dearborn, MI.) And, lastly, people have no idea how impossible it is for an American to emigrate to Mexico. Many American citizens and retirees would like to, if they could. Puerto Vallarta. Cabo. Basically, they have made it illegal to do so. Mexico is hell on immigrants. They want none of them.
Toward the end of the 19th century — when the United States first began to impose meaningful restrictions on immigration — we carved out exemptions for our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere, especially Mexico. Mexicans were effectively exempted from the 1885 prohibition on contract labor that marked the first major federal restriction on immigration. When head taxes and other entrance fees were imposed on immigrants in 1907, Mexicans were again given a pass. And when the United States first implemented a literacy test for immigrants (conducted in their native languages) in 1917, Mexicans were specifically exempted from this policy as well.
Most notably, when in the 1920s the U.S. assigned discriminatory, racially motivated quotas that varied among the most common countries of origin, no such limits were imposed on nations in the Western Hemisphere. This substantial carve-out reflected concessions to agricultural employers. But it was also a nod to business interests eager to keep markets open, as well as to the foreign-policy establishment, which worried about offending our neighbors.
It is worth reading. In the end, I suppose, my sentiment is that I would prefer that people who live in crappy countries do what they can to improve them. My blessed and brave ancestors did that here, for me. Half the world would invade the US were they able to do so. If you want to come here, why not try to make your place like ours? We have enough people already, and terrible unemployment with grandiose PhDs working as restaurant waiters. Nothing wrong with educated wait staff, but it's probably not what they envisioned in their Obama Economy.
Bear in mind that I very much enjoy the legal Mexican and Colombian immigrants around here. Great people, family people, ambitious and entrepreneurial, and wonderful restaurants too. They are doing many jobs which unemployed Americans, with their sense of entitlement, spurn. However, it is true that they frequently prefer cash which, as an honest taxpayer, I resent. Not entirely assimilated into American values, know nothing about our history or traditions or even why we are a special place. Willing to work hard, though. It's more about money than political freedom because neither Mexico nor Colombia are totalitarian or oppressive states.
Except for Boston, New England doesn't have the hispanic drug gangs and crims that California has. Most of our crims here are home-grown.
h/t Willisms. Large, interesting chart is below the fold -
Regardless of that info, I'll keep repeating my gun mantra: Government should focus on disarming the bad guys, not the good guys. Begin with Chicago. Disarming the good guys only creates more helpless victims: Milwaukee Sheriff goes national with message to arm yourself.
Police rarely prevent crime. They cannot be everywhere. Their main job is to find crims after the crime. Your own job is to prevent crime against you and your family.
My Heart's In the Highlands (Live, 2000) Bob's lyrics here. (And here is Robert Burns' song of the same name.)
I see people in the park forgettin' their troubles and woes They're drinkin' and dancin', wearin' bright colored clothes All the young men, with the young women lookin' so good Well, I'd trade places with any of 'em in a minute, if I could.
We get paid for a thing, a service, or a thing plus a service. Most jobs entail some degree of customer service, whether the customer is a client, a buyer in a shop, or a boss. Yes, a boss is a customer, pays you for your service to him or her. This simple textbook might open your eyes to seemingly-obvious things you have been doing wrong to interfere with good business and good business relationships.
It's a lesson in humility. As I said last time, this course is about things many of us think we're too smart to need to learn.
Recap of prior postings in this course this semester:
Heck, Mrs. BD and I have skiied at 10 below. Definitely brisk and exhilarating. I recall that I had a big old Ford Bronco at the time, and it was not too eager to get running but it did after coughing a bit. The skiing was just fine (short lift lines) but the chair lift, in the wind, was brutal. That was Vermont.
4:14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.
4:15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
4:16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
4:17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
4:19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
4:20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
4:21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
4:22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?"
4:23 He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'"
4:24 And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.
4:25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land;
4:26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.
4:27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."
4:28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.
4:29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
4:30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
I have gotten deep into The Leopard, and I can report that I think (for what it's worth) that it is a masterpiece of modern literature. No, of literature. I've read a lot of books. I have not seen the movie with Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale, but I don't need to.
It is sensual in imagery, poetically-written. Guiseppe di Lampedusa finished it shortly before he died, but, sadly, could never get it published.
The story is set in Sicily in the 1860s, during the time when Garibaldi's forces were constructing the nation of Italy, including the invasion and annexation of Sicily. It's a vivid portrait of Sicily which, even today, seems Italian in name only.
Lampedusa warned readers to keep track of the Prince's dog, Bendico.
While getting a college degree dramatically improves a person's potential earnings over time, the sheepskin alone is not the sine qua non.
Certainly not, especially in a time when college degrees are so commonplace and when graduate degrees have lost their economic, social, and academic value through dilution.
Listed in the article are not things you learn in college, but things you can learn wherever you are: high school, college, armed forces, crappy job, or on the street. Basic life lessons which I began learning at 12. I have had paid jobs since then. That's where I learned about life even though my book-larnin' has been a blessing to me.
They could or should have said "should learn before leaving high school" because that is when adulthood is supposed to begin. Well before my time, college students wore suits to class. It was a serious adult endeavor. We don't know what it is now, except that they will give you As (or rarely Bs which used to be Ds and Fs) for paying the bill because the customer is always right except in math, physics or chem. Which is why employers like to see the tough courses and the demanding majors in college grads. They grade on curves, so the right stuff shows to potential employers.
Now that I am in a position to interview new hires at our place, it has been a very interesting experience. We are finally doing quite well after post-start-up challenges. I'll write up a post about our hiring process and our hiring filters when I have a chance.
We get 1000 applicants for each job posting at our little shop, but we do not delete the "overqualified" here if they are willing to take a chance with low wages to start.
It's a month or two early to post about bird migration, particularly passerine migration, here in the northern hemisphere, but I did find this excellent review of the most recent science on the topic:
1 in 4 Swedish Women 
Food cranks update: 
Customer Service: A Practical Approach.
I have gotten deep into