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 eager to check out the new outboard motors and the clubhouse from the dock (with drink of choice in hand) when we arrive.
You can ask Bird Dog how much he enjoyed the old Johnson motors. Our duck boats do have oars, just in case. They are also handy for shoving the boats into the reeds.
After we said some words over the grave, and after some shed some tears, we put Dad's ashes (surprisingly-heavy box of ashes) in a shallow hole next to Moms' and we all went to pick some apples and pears from Dad's trees at the farm last Sunday.
It was just wonderful that is the best year for apples, ever. My pic is just a small sample. The mini pears are as sweet as sugar and his apple varieties are spicey. Stood on chairs and used a butterfly net to harvest the high ones.
I claimed that our Dunkin Donuts coffees and the fruit were our family's Communion after the burial. We did not dare running it through a church. Everybody picked and ate some apples.
Thus did we sneak some Jesus into my cranky Yankee atheist, Bible-loving, distinguished Yale prof Dad's burial. I think it would have been marginally ok with him but he still would have been embarrassed by the attention and sentiment.
And likely, would have had some clever caustic quip about it all. Anyway, excellent apples. Everybody grabbed a box or bag and took a bunch home with them.
He always said that we could toss his cadaver in the river when he died. Well, the box of ashes is darn close to the trout stream.
...no one can be born a Christian in evangelical belief: everyone must come to Jesus individually of his own volition, making a profession of faith based on a genuine conviction of the truth of Jesus’ messiahship. This also explains why, more so than the members of almost any other branch of Christianity, evangelicals share a profound attachment to the textual world of the Bible. For the evangelical, the Bible is more than just a “good book”; it is the literal and inspired word of God, written by prophets who were moved by the holy spirit and preserved through the ages by the hand of divine providence. To evangelicals, the Bible is the blueprint of the cosmos, the framework of history, and the answer to all of life’s mysteries. Only the Bible—not a priesthood or a church hierarchy—can assert authority over the Christian.
Some might term me an Evangelical and some might not. Either way, I learned some things from the essay.
Great trick played on coffee shop patrons in the Village, which I saw on the news this morning. Sure, it's a viral ad (funny that an ad is preceded by advertising...such is the way of media today), but it's incredibly well set up, well designed. I doubt I'll see the movie they're promoting (the original was a classic in the genre), but credit to the marketing guys who did this.
I am reflexively skeptical about anything titled "common," and I do not know what the federal government is doing by getting involved in local education. What I do know is that many people would opt out of many government things if given free choice.
For one hot example, how many would like to opt out of Obamacare? Who wants all of that "insurance coverage"? It's not even really insurance anyway. It covers hangnails, the flu, birth control pills and even pregnancy (why should I pay for your pregnancy if I don't want to? It's elective, and none of my business). It's a pre-paid communal medical treatment plan, and I want nothing to do with it.
There is little that people eat that isn't raised on some sort of farm. As humans over-fish the seas, some fish that were once trash fish are now on restaurant menus. Often, new and more appealing names are used.
I had a perfectly-grilled filet of Branzino last weekend in NYC, on a bed of lobster mashed taters. Even the crispy Branzino skin was delicious. I had never had Branzino before. It's European Sea Bass. It tastes like a small Striped Bass, which means very good and a little sweet. Then I saw this: Why does every restaurant in the USA have Branzino in the menu?
It didn't take long to learn that Local Ocean is farming Branzino in the Northeast US. People are farming Striped Bass too. Count me as in favor of this trend.
Is government power benign, malevolent, or neither? I tend to think that concentrated power is dangerous, regardless of its intentions or of whether it is elected or not. Those who pursue power tend to want more. People like Colbert King see nothing but benevolence. He thinks I am a bad sort of rebel (maybe I am a rebel in opposition to either slavery or serfdom) and doesn't even consider the case for freedom or the dangers of power.
We confront the Great Solvers of the Human Problem who are determined to rearrange everyone to their liking. They began by controlling everything that people did. Now, they have moved on to controlling what people don't do. If you live, if you breathe, if you stir, move your muscles, track moving objects with your eyes, then there are obligations imposed on you.
ObamaCare is one of the final declarations that there is no opting out. Even if you don't drive, own a home, own a business, own a dog, or do one of the infinite things that bring you into mandatory contact with the apparatus of your government, you are committed to a task from maturity to death. Your mission is to obtain health insurance, and, in a system in which you become the ward of the government as soon as you taste air, it is the price that you pay for being alive.
In a free country, you are not obligated to do things simply for the privilege of breathing oxygen north of the Rio Grande and south of Niagara Falls.
Some people seem content with being subjects of a potent parental State which they trust will be filled with wisdom and care. Some (the aspiring adults, in my view) do not. There is a division there. It seems partly psychological. Old John Dean recently commented somewhere that he had become a Dem because Conservatives were the authoritarian party. I think he has it backwards, but he always did.
Nixon was a neo-Liberal. Goldwater was a good guy, as I read my recent history, a Don Quixote or a voice crying in the wilderness.
We'll put his in the same hole as Mom's, not far from the church and the trout stream.
Ashes to ashes.
Dad forbade any ceremoniousness or anything religious and forbade any memorial events, so we kids will just dig a hole and have our own thoughts. Then we'll pick some of his apples and pears, and eat them as if a sort of family communion.
She studies love and desire but sometimes wanders off-topic. Some of what she says is obvious (most people like cheap thrills) but some of it is interesting.
Driving on highway and dirt/gravel road north and then west, we begin to approach our remote lakeside hunting camp. If you tramp through those taiga woods long enough, you will rustle up some grouse, send some black bears running, and interest some coyotes which resemble wolves.
Enough Ruffed Grouse in those birch woods to make for good 20 ga. fun after lunch if you are not a napper, but grouse are not our primary targets up there:
After we said some words over the grave, and after some shed some tears, we put Dad's ashes (surprisingly-heavy box of ashes) in a shallow hole next to Moms' and we all went to pick some apples and pears from Dad's trees at the farm last Sunday.
Verizon Edge, AT&T Next 
I don't mind being called a Redskin. It's a matter of family pride to have a little savage redskin blood. 
But then they had to backtrack: 
We'll put his in the same hole as Mom's, not far from the church and the trout stream.
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