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.
I am only speaking for myself, not for all on the commune here. My opinion is that we have immigration laws for a reason. If you are here illegally, it should be illegal for you to have a job or to even be here. I don't care whether you are Mexican or Bulgarian or Canadian. The US should enforce its immigration laws. What is "broken" about US immigration is absence of enforcement.
There are legal paths to become an American citizen. First, you apply for a green card. Then we decide whether you would add value to the country in some way that Americans can't. It usually takes years.
Otherwise, fix your own country so it's more like ours. America does not need more people. We have too many losers already.
Most people don't need one very often, but they are darn handy when you do. Using the magic of leverage combined with the human arm and the ratchet, one can apply remarkable power either vertically as a hoist or horizontally for pulling.
We are using a come-along today to install some new barbed wire in a 50-acre field. Not too tight, not too loose. Most of the posts are solid enough but the wire helps hold them in place and we use trees for the machine. We used to have an electrified fence but the barbed works fine. It's for the cattle, not for the horses.
If you wanted to, you could pull a tree down with one of these, but a chain saw makes better sense. Pictured is a 1.5 ton lever, but they come in varied powers.
Tugit makes good ones. Good, cheap, powerful tool. With a little grease and some pine boards you can easily move your shed, chicken coop, or outhouse with it.
Yes, they do sell Brown Turkey Fig, which is readily grown in New England. They also have the Celeste Fig.
In a tough winter, they will have to come back from the roots, but they usually do. Old-time Italians grow them in big pots, and drag them into the garage for the winter.
In the colder zones, grow them in a sheltered spot. My old fig finally succumbed to an especially cold winter, but I have a spot for a new one where I won't forget to keep it well-covered and mulched for winter.
Our kids loved to pick and chow down on hot, ripe figs out in the garden. And a big fig leaf is always useful for...summer clothing.
One of my problems with economic analyses of society is that they tend view society, naturally, through an economic lens. Although almost everybody could find some good application of more cash, in my experience most people do not make the pursuit of cash their only goal in life, or even their primary goal, beyond providing decent living conditions for one's family. One must assume that people construct the life they want, or do their best to attempt to.
If people want more money, they can find a second job, or start a business. That's the American Way.
One thing large economic inequality can breed, however is envy and resentment. Envy is bred from an ignorant view of wealth as a zero-sum game. It also happens to be a Deadly Sin.
The problem is this: You create your Marxist materialistically-egalitarian utopia or dystopia or whatever, with only your Dear Leaders getting the limos and caviar and palaces, and then a Steve Jobs or Lebron James or Picasso or Steven King or Spielberg or Bob Dylan or Bill Gross appears, and everybody wants to buy their work. What then? Their work is not a commodity because they have a talent and make the effort to produce unique creations that people want to spend money on, and they expect to be compensated for it.
I want all Americans to be wealthy and Americans are, compared to the rest of the world. I am not in the .01%, or even in the 1%. I am in the 5-10% I suspect, and, while I believe I am especially good at the work I produce, it's basically a commodity. We have a comfortable life, but not so cushioned that I could stop working even if I wanted to. Which I do not.
There are tons of Soprano clips on Youtube. You can waste lots of time sampling them. There is something fascinating about sociopathy, but how much brain space do you want it to take up?
His death, at the age of fifty-one, in Italy, does not come entirely as a shock. But that makes it no less a loss. Gandolfini was not a fantastically varied actor. He played within a certain range. Like Jackie Gleason, he’ll be remembered for a particular role, and a particular kind of role, but there is no underestimating his devotion to the part of a lifetime that was given to him. In the dozens of hours he had on the screen, he made Tony Soprano—lovable, repulsive, cunning, ignorant, brutal—more ruthlessly alive than any character we’ve ever encountered in television.
When people ask me why I moved from liberal to conservative, I have a one-word answer: Detroit. I grew up there, on a middle-class grid street in northwest Detroit and a curving street in affluent suburban Birmingham, and I got a job as an intern in the office of the mayor in the summer of 1967 when Detroit rioted. I was at the side of Mayor Jerome Cavanagh and occasionally Governor George Romney during the six days and nights in which 43 people, mostly innocent bystanders, died. I listened to the radio in the police commissioner's office as commanders announced, shortly after sundown, that they were abandoning one square mile after another. The riot ended only after federal troops were called in and restored order.
Came home from a busy and exertional family day last weekend to notice some of Mrs. BD's Digitalis in glorious bloom.
Whenever I see Digitalis - Foxglove - in bloom I remember "the Shropshire Crone," renowned in medical history for promoting the use of it for "dropsy" - congestive heart failure. The astute and open-minded Dr. William Withering took notice and got all of the credit - hence the continued use of Digitalis for heart failure. Many people we see walking around would be either dead or bed-ridden without this herbal treatment. Digitalis increases the contractility of the failing heart, but in higher doses it kills you.
Digitalis is a biennial, and self-sows generously when in a happy spot - half-day sun, rich soil. That is Nepeta in bloom in the foreground, and the low-growing Little Lamb's Ear Hydrangea on the left, which will bloom white in late summer.
Up here in the land of snow, we treasure our gardens especially because our growing season is so darn short. Our plants have to know how to carpe diem even if we do not. We try to learn from them. Winter is coming.
I am not sure why schools of education exist. It seems like an odd concept to me. It would seem to me that an apprenticeship system would work better for the lower grades.
The best private schools do not demand teaching credentials, and do not want to hire education majors. Likewise, college faculties do not need to be taught how to teach.
Niall Ferguson: Tocqueville saw a nation of individuals who were defiant of authority. Today? Welcome to Planet Government:
Tocqueville would not recognize America today. Indeed, so completely has associational life collapsed, and so enormously has the state grown, that he would be forced to conclude that, at some point between 1833 and 2013, France must have conquered the United States.
The last few weeks since Edward Snowden released not only the data he had, but also made his name and face public, have been quite interesting. It has caused many heated discussions in my household, as well as between myself and friends. After all, the US is split regarding whether Snowden did something 'wrong' and put our nation at risk. But I don't think anyone properly understands the case. I'll include myself, because I don't think anyone can fully grasp the various threads of law which surround the story. Primarily, though, it's because this involves classified documents and laws regarding these are arcane and biased toward the support of governmental authority rather than Constitutionally derived freedoms. Regardless, there are some essential facts which even the most simple of us can understand and make good judgements based on.
The most common arguments against my stance, which supports Snowden's actions, are these:
We don't have any privacy, and in never having it, we shouldn't worry if the government sees anything if we have nothing to hide. One part of this argument is almost correct but meaningless, the second part is downright frightening if we're so naive as to believe having nothing to hide is a useful rationale.
Snowden broke an oath, and in breaking that oath made the US less safe. Again, a portion of this is correct, but if it's important to you, you must stretch your moral guidelines regarding what an oath is designed to do, and the second part is just plain wrong, even after the NSA has listed its "successes" in thwarting terrorist plots with PRISM.
Heard these guys live and up close a couple of years ago. Good for the spirit. Middle daughter and I sat next to the rose garden while waiters passed drinks, and I had a cognac and a ceegar. Nice evening. Then we walked home hearing them play in the distance. They played til midnight. I just stayed long enough to hear Sweet Melissa and Blue Sky live. They can still have fun with musical themes, and they work hard to entertain you.
Sexual interest is obviously one of the primary human motivators. Blame it on biology, or God, or whatever. Wherever you put people together, especially young people in their prime, sexual curiosity will be in the air. This epidemic has been forever.
It doesn't matter whether they are gay, straight, or mixed-up. It happens when you put people together. People of strong character do not act on impulse when it is inappropriate, but many cannot resist the pull or just don't want to resist. It's fighting nature, and the addition of alcohol or other substances doesn't help. Neither does being away from home. People do get attached, form bonds, develop partnerships, loyalty, etc but raw desire has no respect for these civilized things. Furthermore, people need, at the very least, some form of "maintenance sex" for comfort but it is no insulation from reckless desires and romantic aspirations.
It seems to me that "sexual harassment" has come to include many expressions of virile or feminine sexual interest, extending the concept far beyond physical aggression (which is illegal. That is termed "assault," and can be felonious) to "unwelcome" advances.
In my life, I have been subject to hundreds of unwelcome advances from both men and women, and some of them were, well, forceful but not physically forceful. Weaker women might view much of it as harassment, but I took most of it in good humor because my brothers, my protectors, taught me about male tendencies. Women learn how to brush them off, but one of those advances turned out to be my husband of quite a few years and up to the present. A good guy, very shy and very smart, but who got up his courage to act like any other jerk because he felt he could not resist me. I could somehow tell that he was a good guy.
Now I read that the US Navy doesn't want guys looking at pictures of girls in the bathroom. What do they want these fellows to do for relief? Do they want an all-gay Navy? Or eunuchs?
When I was a kid, the Good Humor Man came down the street after suppertime, ringing his bell. I was partial to the vanilla thing coated with nuts, and the orange-raspberry popsicles.
How that guy made a living, just in summertime, with those 25 cent treats, is beyond me. Dad would give us each a quarter for them, but not every night. Maybe once a week. You would hear the jingle, and kids would evacuate their houses. Anyway, the union and gas prices put an end to that charming tradition.
Now they have the more urban Mr. Softee. He does not come into our village.
Most people don't need one very often, but they are darn handy when you do. Using the magic of leverage combined with the human arm and the ratchet, one can apply remarkable power either vertically as a hoist or horizontally for pulling.
Our annual 
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