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.
You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. The truth is, I haven't been feeling very well. It's not that I'm getting any worse; it's that I seemed to have stopped getting better. I did real well (according to the doc) after my tumor operation, but it seems like sometime during November I kind of leveled off at about 75% better. I still have bouts of weakness and sleepiness and a physical feeling bordering on nausea. And I just haven't found it in me to write about anything. As long-time readers know, even my most dire and scariest of articles, like the ones on the domestic spy drones, still have an upbeat, chipper edge to them, just because that's who I am.
They already did one standard blood test but the doc wants to do a more elaborate test, which I just can't afford right now. I'm already into the hospital for almost 300 clams and don't want to sink any deeper, nor am I sure they'd let me. I still have my operation's donation link here, but I wouldn't hope for any help on this. It's one thing to pitch in when someone's got a pending operation, whereas everybody's got medical bills. But I felt obligated to toss it out there.
By the way, there was one ironic note that I forgot to mention in my post-op posts. Within a few weeks of my operation, both my mother and a close friend up in Miami Beach had operations that involved surgery.
Both of them got infections after the operation. Thankfully, modern medicine came to their rescue.
Me, getting my operation in dirty, filthy, don't-drink-the-water Mexico, sailed through without a hitch.
That says something -- but I'm honestly not sure what.
If I do end up just kind of fading away, I'd like to say what an honor it's been to blog here these past five years. In twenty years of being online, I have never seen a site like it. Where else will you see video essays like my posts on horses, baseball and the amazing Jackie Evancho, only to next read an inside look at the higher education bubble, followed by a penetrating inquiry into the human psyche -- then end up with 'Chipmunk Of The Week'?
There's just no putting a price on something like that.
... the shock, in my mind, is not his commitment to compulsory redistribution, but that a leader so young has such old ideas. He is a man from America's past.
Barack Obama is old-school. He believes in top-down planning, not bottom-up incentives. He sees government as an industrial machine, though he lives in the age of the network. He trusts political and artificial imperatives from Washington, not natural and organic choices by ordinary Americans.His answer to irresponsive, ineffective, unaffordable old government is not reform, but to produce more of it. Obama's bright young smile cloaks archaic ideas, ill-suited for today's global economic race.
...even after almost half a century, somewhere inside I’m still eighteen and scratching a living on horseback in chaps, helping push a dusty, cranky herd of cattle to the upper range, with the brim of my cowboy hat shading a blinding bright summer view that stretches out well beyond next payday and leapfrogs my petty cares, a view from where we stood on the high summer range, overlooking the winter pastures far below, and on beyond the cities known and unknown, my young heart sailing away past the verdant, distant hills, careening towards an unknown brilliant future … and now, like the old cowboy with his idiot grin, I find myself wandering that same path still, with that same young heart and those same illusions and foolish dreams.
“I set out, usually, on a mission of self-discoveryto find out what I really think about a subject. I don’t have fixed opinions or views when I start to write; it’s writing that forces them out of me.”
Joseph Epstein, from a review of his latest book. I am an Epstein fan. Smart guy, says whatever he thinks and damn the torpedoes.
500,000 rail passengers move daily through that remarkable two-level space. That's a lot, but it will be more when the Long Island Railroad's new underground construction is complete (LIRR now only goes to Penn Station out in the West Side hinterlands). It was brilliant to put those tracks underground up to 96th St., thus creating upper Park Avenue and its now-insanely valuable real estate.
This ol' country boy still loves NYC. In my youth, I greeted so many gals and pals at that station, coming or going, that I feel nostalgia whenever I am there. Adventure. It looks and feels far better now, but that musty old train station smell is the same.
My pic of the Grand Central Market. Good stuff for prosperous commuters
to pick up on the way home. Excellent cheese and fish stalls.
A clip from 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade featuring the full Glenn Miller band, the Modernaires (they're the card players and Paula Kelly), and wait'll you see Dorothy Dandridge cake-walk with the Nicholas Brothers (she was married to one of them). This gotta be one of the all-time Choo-Choos --maybe the wildest, funniest, ever! Also, Milton Berle is in the mis-en-scene audience --
We all want to be effective in achieving our life goals. Like all of the classic or semi-classic books in this seminar, the best advantage is to be gained from group discussion of favorite points in a seminar forum or a group of peers instead of just by reading them. A book group sort of thing.
Is it possible to create new habits? Of course it is, but learning requires humility and improvement requires self-discipline and risk-taking. I am eager to learn from others. We all tend to learn how to negotiate life by example, or by our failures. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.
All of these books have helped me enormously in my work life and in managing my personal life.
Previous books in this semester's not-for-credit course:
It's the end of hunting season, and I have not killed enough stuff this year to satisfy the hunter in me. I have a doe in the freezer, countless pheasants and chukars, a few Canada Geese and a bunch of ducks of several species. A couple of grouse, but we have eaten most of them and all of the woodcock. (Ask me how to make woodcock ravioli with jus de gibier and black truffle - I will tell you.)
There is a feeling of regret. How many hunting seasons does a man have in one lifetime? And work, family, and obligations intrude, as they should and must. Carpe diem, if you can. It's been a terrible winter for ducks - weather too pleasant.
The only consolation is that it is now time to really get cooking all of the good game in the freezer. For starters, we're doing a large-scale venison bourguignon for a get-together next weekend. The following week, will do the venison filets for some lucky guests. With the Canada geese, I will have a small party and sautee the breasts rare with some mushrooms and celery root puree, with gibier sauce, etc. For the ducks - oh, man. Very special recipes for those precious wild spirits, which I may write about sometime. For the Snow Geese, a nice cassoulet with some other mixed game. For all the bones, wings, carcasses, etc., including the carcass of the Thanksgiving turkey and the bone of the Christmas ham, we'll make a gallon or two of Uncle Bill's jus de gibier, to use with everything, saving some of it for a special, once a year consomme de gibier for Valentine's Day.
Despite all of these delights, I'd rather be in the woods and swamps with the dogs and a gun.
The reason the Democrat’s trash talk message worked so well is because it fell on fertile soil. The Left knew that it couldn’t sell Obama — his record did not speak for itself — but Leftist strategizers also knew that for decades the Left had created an intellectual atmosphere in which it was easy for people to believe, all evidence to the contrary, that Romney was an evil, soulless man...
3:12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness,
3:13 not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside.
3:14 But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside.
3:15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds;
3:16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
3:18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
4:1 Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.
4:2 We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God's word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.
I have made the case here, in the past, that PTSD is not so much a disease or "disorder," but a normal variant in response to disturbing events. The mental health field, these days, is pathologizing everything and everybody.
I have seen persistent PTSD complaints in all sorts of people, far more civilians than military. Life affects us deeply, and can shatter us, unless we are heavily armored or lacking in emotional response. I have seen them in sudden announcements to divorce, spousal death, deaths of a child, job loss, fatal car crashes, young police officers, and witnesses to the 9-11 jumpers.
We Westerners live in a mostly safe world, insulated from so much of the pain, distress, and horror which were routine in past generations. An ordinary snowfall, or a loss of electric power, is now a really big deal, a tragedy. We are so safe and comfortable that we have lost the tools to cope with tough situations, scenes of horror, and painful memories. These things do, indeed, change us. Comfort and safety have made us innocent, in a way. Police and doctors deal with these things routinely, and develop thick skins, professional distance.
By government, they mean the VA. "Qualifying" for disability is a terrible idea. Getting into life is the best plan, whether one wants to or not. No matter what happens, it's best to buck up and get on with it.
There is no treatment, no cure, for being human. There is no cure for PTSD complaints other than the old-fashioned "tincture of time." Entrepreneurs out there sell cures which are snake oil. All we Psychiatrists really have to offer these people is care, emotional support, help with substance abuse, and, if they wish, emotion-blunting medicines. There is no magic cure for life's horrors and misfortunes other than alcohol and drugs, and they tend to make things worse in the end.
Those very thick Costco Prime Ribeyes are the official steak of Maggie's Farm. Given the choice of cooking them on charcoal or in a fiery-hot cast iron pan, I'll always use the pan. They must come out Rare, in my view, and crispy on the outside which means taking them off the heat before they are Rare. I always have to remind myself that they continue cooking after you take them off the stove. Undercooked is much better than overcooked, and a smoky kitchen is a good kitchen.
I use a little butter in addition to the steak's fat. On a normal day, I can only eat half a Costco ribeye. I like to serve it with some canned red bell pepper slices, sauteed and almost burned, in the same pan. Mashed potatoes too, of course, and if anybody makes creamed spinach, then it's a perfect supper.
Report from the Killer Snowstorm of the Century: Just another ordinary good winter snow dump, overhyped as usual. Around 15-18 fluffy inches here. The old Explorer can handle it easily but I am waiting for my plow guys to show up to make life shipshape. Yes, they are Hispanics. They want to work, and do not mind the cold.
T.S. Eliot said "What can a poet do after Swinburne?" Good question, Tommy. Nothing decadent was outside his Victorian imagination, yet everything evocative was within it. Bio of Algernon Charles Swinburne here.
Dolores (Madonna of the Seven Sorrows)
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour; The heavy white limbs, and the cruel Red mouth like a venomous flower; When these are gone by with their glories, What shall rest of thee then, what remain, O mystic and sombre Dolores, Our Lady of Pain?
Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin; But thy sins, which are seventy times seven, Seven ages would fail thee to purge in, And then they would haunt thee in heaven: Fierce midnights and famishing morrows, And the loves that complete and control All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows That wear out the soul.
O garment not golden but gilded, O garden where all men may dwell, O tower not of ivory, but builded By hands that reach heaven from hell; O mystical rose of the mire, O house not of gold but of gain, O house of unquenchable fire, Our Lady of Pain!
(the remainder of this amazing poem on continuation page below - take a moment for Algernon -not one of us will ever do better)
You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. The truth is, I haven't been feeling very well. It's not that I'm getting any worse; it's that I seemed to have stopped getting better. I did real well (according to the doc) after my tumor operation, but it seems like sometime during November I kind of leveled off at about 75% better. I still have bouts of weakness and sleepiness and a physical feeling bordering on nausea. And I just haven't found it in me to write about anything. As long-time readers know, even my most dire and scariest of articles, like the ones on the domestic spy drones, still have an upbeat, chipper edge to them, just because that's who I am.
Lots of gals
We got two feet up here.
A wonderful read. From 
It's the end of hunting season, and I have not killed enough stuff this year to satisfy the hunter in me. I have a doe in the freezer, countless pheasants and chukars, a few Canada Geese and a bunch of ducks of several species. A couple of grouse, but we have eaten most of them and all of the woodcock. (Ask me how to make woodcock ravioli with jus de gibier and black truffle - I will tell you.)
T.S. Eliot said "What can a poet do after Swinburne?" Good question, Tommy. Nothing decadent was outside his Victorian imagination, yet everything evocative was within it. Bio of Algernon Charles Swinburne