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.
"Men are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites,—in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety and understanding is above their vanity and presumption — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
For all of the years that I have kept records, flocks of northbound blackbirds (generally Grackles and Redwings at first) have arrived here between Feb. 14 and Feb 16.
This year, they appeared yesterday - Feb 24. That's a record in my book.
I do not understand why more people are not worried about global cooling.
Winter with strong frosts and lots of snow like 20 years
ago will cease to exist at our latitudes,’ said scientist Mojib Latif of
the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.
Explanation in 2013:
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research sees
the hard winters as being the result of global warming: Icy Arctic winds
will be triggered by it and reach all the way to Europe unhindered due
to climate change in the Arctic.
I got the idea for this article when I was visiting Rice University last year. As I was leaving the campus, which is just outside the central business district of Houston, I noticed a group of glass skyscrapers about a mile away lighting up the evening sky. The scene looked like Dubai. I was looking at the Texas Medical Center, a nearly 1,300-acre, 280-building complex of hospitals and related medical facilities, of which MD Anderson is the lead brand name. Medicine had obviously become a huge business. In fact, of Houston’s top 10 employers, five are hospitals, including MD Anderson with 19,000 employees; three, led by ExxonMobil with 14,000 employees, are energy companies. How did that happen, I wondered. Where’s all that money coming from? And where is it going? I have spent the past seven months trying to find out by analyzing a variety of bills from hospitals like MD Anderson, doctors, drug companies and every other player in the American health care ecosystem...
Tort reform is an easy place to start. I think 90% of CAT scans are defensive, and are billed at anywhere between $600 and $3000.
Second might be an acceptance of the inevitability of death. No, I do not mean death panels. I just mean acceptance. Death is not an enemy.
My son Nicholas is now in his early teens. He can swing a pretty mean axe, piling up the wood with steady progress. I remember well when multiple strikes of his little axe were as so many raindrops on a window. As years passed by we kept setting up a chopping station for him at a safe distance from mine. Little talk, much swinging, even if not much splitting. Then the tell-tale sound—a sort of hollow echo—of a strike that has hit home. This followed by the ripping sound of a strike that has broken through. I will never forget his looking over to see if I had heard that magical sound. Of course I had. I would not take that away from him. I would not take it away from us.
9:28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.
9:29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.
9:30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.
9:31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
9:32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.
9:33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" -- not knowing what he said.
9:34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.
9:35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
9:36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
9:37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.
9:38 Just then a man from the crowd shouted, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.
9:39 Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.
9:40 I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not."
9:41 Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here."
9:42 While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.
9:43a And all were astounded at the greatness of God.
Gals seem to have a thing about diamonds. Must be in their blood. Large rocks are tacky. I think emeralds and rubies look great, and gold seems to have been a good investment, but diamonds are certainly flattering and are known to increase the odds of getting lucky.
Fellows, sneak out of work this morning and get her one of these outfits to show that you care:
We held my Mom's funeral today in her starkly-simple 1723 Congregational Church in Yankeeland. You'll be relieved to know that I did a pretty good job with my send-off talk to a full house - she was a popular gal who added a lot to other people's lives in many ways - barely hesitated a couple of times, and got plenty of laughs. The spontaneity of my eulogy was enhanced by the error of having lent my glasses to Mrs. BD for the hymn, and forgot to bring them to the pulpit to be able to read my notes. Perfect. A grumpy baby added a lot to the bittersweet spirit of the event. A church service without a grouchy baby is sterile - and funerals and babies just go naturally together.
I am pretty good with gentle funeral humor. I have had too much practice with such things, and I have a relaxed, casual, cheerful, and friendly attitude, once I get on a pulpit, that people seem to enjoy. I don't know where it comes from. From God, maybe. Not from me.
Happily, all of my kids were there.
The flowers were just daisies on the altar, done by Mrs. BD. Just right for my Mom who detested anything fancy, showy, or pretentious. All 5 of us kids participated, and the Pastor was truly inspiring - and brief. He intertwined Lent with death, rebirth, and planting. The howling back of my brain found some rest after the funeral, and I had a couple of glasses of wine with the luncheon, sitting with my somewhat-benumbed Dad who wined and dined with vigor, and caught up with old family friends and cousins I had not seen in years. Some old friends from youth showed up too, that I had not reconnected with for many years - and needed to.
A summer sunset at the beautiful Berkshire farm she loved so much, in her family since before the Revolution. Her ashes will join those of her ancestors there. We have a ramshackle family cemetery on the farm with a fence to keep cows or horses out of it so they don't poop on the graves:
My Mom was a gardener par excellence. One of the hymns my sisters selected was an old-timey favorite of mine, and of my Dad's. It's a love song. I call it In The Garden:
Nature seems (the more we look into it) made up of antipathies: without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action. Life would turn to a stagnant pool, were it not ruffled by the jarring interests, the unruly passions, of men. The white streak in our own fortunes is brightened (or just rendered visible) by making all around it as dark as possible; so the rainbow paints its form upon the cloud. Is it pride? Is it envy? Is it the force of contrast? Is it weakness or malice? But so it is, that there is a secret affinity, a hankering after, evil in the human mind, and that it takes a perverse, but a fortunate delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction. Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, wants variety and spirit. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal. Do we not see this principle at work everywhere? Animals torment and worry one another without mercy: children kill flies for sport: every one reads the accidents and offences in a newspaper as the cream of the jest: a whole town runs to be present at a fire, and the spectator by no means exults to see it extinguished..
His essay is a rambling one, touching on essay construction, why English profs got involved with composition, why modern lit became college study, etc.
You're thinking, "A half-court basketball shot? Hey, it might take me a few tries, but no big deal!"
I remind you, though, that form also counts.
But on a low note, as long as I was on YouTube I decided to investigate the darker side of basketball, so I did a search for "basketball cheerleader mayhem bloody death" and came up with the following horrific scene of a cheerleader being brutalized right there in public.
I didn't have the stomach to watch past the halfway point, though.
The 45-year-old former lawyer added: ‘We are going to take England — the
Muslims are coming. Brussels is 30 per cent, 40 per cent Muslim in
Amsterdam. Bradford is 17 per cent Muslim. These people are like a
tsunami going across Europe.”
Related, "Ancient Military Drum Airs" are (in order): "Closing
the Long Roll", "Three Camps" (American Revolution), "The Downfall of
Paris" (War of 1812), and "Hell On the Wabash" (American Civil War).
Almost anybody except a confirmed metrosexual would willingly march into gunfire with good drumming. It can make a fellow feel like "It's a good day to die!" (It seems to be controversial about who said that first, but it's probably been spoken since the dawn of humanity.)
Beginning as early as kindergarten, the authors explained, girls have better average social and behavioral skills than boys, and that relates to girls’ higher average grades at each stage of school and why girls are more likely to earn a degree.
“The grade gap isn’t about ability,” said Claudia Buchmann, co-author and sociology professor at Ohio State University, “it’s really more about effort and engagement in school…”
At APOD, c
Good news: 
The Chariot (1863)
Dunkin' Donuts