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.
The fundamental issue in the academic job market is not that administrators are cheap and greedy, or that adjuncts lack a union. It’s that there are many more people who want to be research professors than there are jobs for them. And since all those people have invested the better part of a decade in earning their job qualifications, they will hang around on the edges of academia rather than trying to start over. Such a gigantic glut of labor is bound to push down wages and working conditions.
Unfortunately, I’m essentially arguing that professors ought to, out of the goodness of their heart, get rid of their graduate programs and go back to teaching introductory classes to distracted freshman. Maybe they should do this. But they’re not going to.
It's an amusing update on food fashion. Everybody likes new tastes, dining out, food adventures. I had the best steak tartare in my life last night. Right now, all of the restaurants are trying to outdo each other with their steak tartare.
2014 opens on a dramatic scene. Barack Obama appears to have lost his shirt in the casino of history. Every bet he confidently made in last five years has turned out to be a dud, and the other players are waiting on the turnover of his chips. The beads of sweat stand out on his face as he regards the smug countenances of the saturnine Russians, the poker-faced Persians, and the wheedling Afghans.
The Rough-Legged Hawk breeds in the far north, like the Snowy Owl, but during winter can be found throughout the US, especially in open spaces.
He is a very large hawk with black thumbprints on his wrists - unmistakable in flight. And like most hawks and owls, he is hunting mostly small furry things and vulnerable birds. Like the Snowy Owl, I've seen them in Montauk in the winter.
Also, happily perusing a recent birding book - National Geographic's The Complete Birds of North America. It is complete, with a good section on gulls, which I use as a judge of a bird book. It's a companion to NG's Field Guide, and has plenty of information, including habitat, population trends, migratory details, and where populations are expanding and contracting. Good on trends in "accidental" sightings, too. For example, the book notes the increased sightings of Swallow-Tailed Kite in New England - and makes note of its historic populations in the northern USA.
An excellent review of the state of higher ed in the US from VDH: The Outlaw Campus. He begins:
Colleges have gone rogue and become virtual outlaw institutions. Graduates owe an aggregate of $1 trillion in student debt, borrowed at interest rates far above home-mortgage rates — all on the principle that universities could charge as much as they liked, given that students could borrow as much as they needed in federally guaranteed loans.
Few graduates have the ability to pay back the principal; they are simply paying the compounded interest. More importantly, a college degree is not any more a sure pathway to a good job, nor does it guarantee that its holder is better educated than those without it. If the best sinecure in America is a tenured full professorship, the worst fate may be that of a recent graduate in anthropology with a $100,000 loan. That the two are co-dependent is a national scandal.
In short, the university has abjectly defaulted on its side of the social contract by no longer providing an affordable and valuable degree. Accordingly, society can no longer grant it an exemption from scrutiny.
"There were no resources available to send me to college, and if there were, I did not have the GPA to justify it. I have never been college material. But I was raised to solve problems. I did that, and life has been good to me. I am not a candidate to be interviewed on Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs…although, I should be, and if it were to happen, I would consider it a very high honor. I do not wear my first name on a badge on my shirt. Although, in my mind’s eye, I do. I do not think of computer programming as any kind of white-collar, let alone savant-intellectual, affair. I never have. I have always thought of it as on par with stacking lumber. Just problem-solving. Nothing more than that. More blue-collar than white-collar. Just implementing stuff, so that the people way-up-there who have to make real decisions, can concentrate on those decisions, after I make sure the machines do what they’re supposed to be doing. All these years, on some level, I’ve always thought of myself as a sort of janitor or something.
And, I’ve always thought of myself — always had to think of myself — as the beneficiary of an uncommon bit of good fortune. No, wait. That is an understatement. An historical bit of good fortune. Fantastic fortune. Like, you fire a bullet out of your gun, someone else fires a bullet that hits your bullet and knocks your bullet out of the air. That kind of good fortune.
Since about the seventeenth century or so, we have had this institution we have called “college” that is supposed to — let’s be honest, okay? — put on this good show about trying to educate the masses so everyone can be moar-better-equal, while in reality, laboring tirelessly to preserve and perpetuate a caste system..."
The best way to go, many feel, is to get pneumonia in old age and to die quietly, peacefully. Most are not so lucky and some darn doc will try to treat your pneumonia at age 92 to extend your life for a few weeks in the ICU on a respirator. However, for many, if you outlive heart disease cancer will get you: Why Everyone Seems to Have Cancer.
We don't call it "dying of old age" anymore because we have much better diagnostic tools. Everybody has to die from something or other.
MacDonald: The Humanities Have Forgotten Their Humanity - When Shakespeare lost out to 'rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class' at UCLA, something vital was harmed. (paywall)
Plenty of my family members and good pals are Liberals. They probably think I'm half-crazy. I quietly notice that they do not live like Lefties.They are often more materially-oriented and money-oriented than I am, minimize their taxes,and like cars. They just like that virtuous, self-congratulatory Lefty feeling.
For one thing, he did paint "an America that was." I lived it, it was my growing-up world. Not everybody's, but mine for sure in New England. Church, barber shop, the town drunk, the town meeting, teasing the girls, backyard baseball, the classrooms, all of it. Call it fine art, pop-art, illustration, whatever. Was Watteau a "fine artist" or an interior decorator? I'd say the latter. Picasso? No and yes.
Rockwell documented the small, mundane moments of ordinary life. His pictures are great fun to look at in the same way that Breughel's are. Paint can accomplish much more than a camera ever can, but it's all either for religious or secular entertainment.
The Rockwell Museum is in Stockbridge, MA, if you are ever passing through there. Same town as Alice's Restaurant.
From the Editor of The Atlantic, Surviving Anxiety - I've tried therapy, drugs, and booze. Here’s how I came to terms with the nation's most common mental illness:
I wish I could say that my anxiety is a recent development, or that it is limited to public speaking. It’s not. My wedding was accompanied by sweating so torrential that it soaked through my clothes and by shakes so severe that I had to lean on my bride at the altar, so as not to collapse. At the birth of our first child, the nurses had to briefly stop ministering to my wife, who was in the throes of labor, to attend to me as I turned pale and keeled over. I’ve abandoned dates; walked out of exams; and had breakdowns during job interviews, plane flights, train trips, and car rides, and simply walking down the street. On ordinary days, doing ordinary things—reading a book, lying in bed, talking on the phone, sitting in a meeting, playing tennis—I have thousands of times been stricken by a pervasive sense of existential dread and been beset by nausea, vertigo, shaking, and a panoply of other physical symptoms. In these instances, I have sometimes been convinced that death, or something somehow worse, was imminent.
Even when not actively afflicted by such acute episodes, I am buffeted by worry: about my health and my family members’ health; about finances; about work; about the rattle in my car and the dripping in my basement; about the encroachment of old age and the inevitability of death; about everything and nothing. Sometimes this worry gets transmuted into low-grade physical discomfort—stomachaches, headaches, dizziness, pains in my arms and legs—or a general malaise, as though I have mononucleosis or the flu. At various times, I have developed anxiety-induced difficulties breathing, swallowing, even walking; these difficulties then become obsessions, consuming all of my thinking.
It's a vivid description of what we used to call Anxiety Neurosis but now term Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Stossel says that nothing has helped him except for moderate use of Xanax and/or alcohol. He has concluded that he just needs to live with it, if not to embrace it.
Flights of Fancy in Avian Evolution - From mousebirds to terror birds, the class Aves has encompassed a remarkable diversity of species over the past 150 million years.
Pic below is a Snowy Owl. They come down here in winter and are diurnal, but I haven't seen one lately. They like big open spaces - beaches, marshes, dumps, meadows - that remind them of the tundra. Terror bird, for rats.
God resolved the dilemma between love and justice by taking them both all the way. The creator of the world took the hit we had coming. The anger, the condemnation, the judgment all fell on Jesus, who bore it all out of love. That, for Christians, is what makes Christmas such a special time of year. God really knows us; he knows the worst things about us and isn’t fooled by our rationalizations and evasions. And he still loves us enough to be born among us and to pay the price for all we have done.
Many stars took it upon themselves to head to New Orleans post-Katrina. They hoped to provide comfort and assistance to the unfortunate people impacted by the storm. As I've noted here, I have no quarrel with people giving their time and effort to a worthy cause. I respect those who put their time and money on the line.
I also respect trying to be 'green', if that's what you're into. I'm 'green', though not in a manner Ed Begley, Jr. would approve.
However sanctimonious some Hollywood stars may be, it's disturbing to see well-meaning organizations get swindled.
Going overboard on the green express will undoubtedly lead to more problems such as those Brad Pitt's Make it Right Foundation has experienced. A new, but untested, method of treating wood which avoids toxic chemicals was used on portions of New Orleans homes. The wood is now rotting.
Some claim the problems were due to New Orleans' humidity. I have to wonder, since they ran into issues up north.
Yesterday a former NFL punter, Chris Kluwe, wrote an article for Deadspin that intimated he was released due to his advocacy in support of gay marriage/gay rights. I doubt very much his outspokenness led to his release. He had other tryouts and didn't make those teams. My guess is his performance was declining, which Kluwe suggests when he mentioned his knee surgery.
Kluwe had, or has, a monster leg. He is well known for out-kicking his coverage toward the end of his tenure. In the NFL, this is indicative of being a poor punter.
Kluwe hoped someone in management would tell him what to do, be quiet or speak up. Management never does that, because formally telling someone to keep their mouth shut can lead to lawsuits. Best to hint it's not a good idea and let the speaker fill in the blanks. Kluwe, a player well-known for his intelligence, failed to connect those dots.
Others doubt he was let go for his comments. However, if the choice came down to him and someone of equal skill, it's doubtful his comments improved his chances of play. Better to have a less highly visible player doing as good a job for a much lower salary. I used Kluwe's story to provide a life lesson for my boys. Understand that saying what you believe is right and just, and shouldn't necessarily be punishable, but sometimes it's better to say nothing. Unless you are your own boss, you should consider yourself replaceable.
The Vikings have said they will look into his allegations. However, the primary statistic for punting success, pinning opponents inside the 20, had dropped to a new low his final season.
Did someone in the organization say or do something 'wrong'? Probably, in today's world we're all guilty of this at some point. Is that meaningful? Not really. I don't support anti-gay slurs, but everyone is allowed to have a point of view. More importantly, when you work for any firm, you need to be careful to not put them at risk, particularly if they make it clear you're stepping on some toes. My guess is Kluwe's skills were in decline, and he didn't help his own case. He certainly doesn't make himself look better as a bitter, petulant complainant. If anything, my respect for his willingness to speak up on issues (even some I disagree with him on) has dropped because he has become so self-serving with this article.
Indeed, I've seen some people suggest Tim Tebow can't find a home in the NFL because of his beliefs. I doubt that is any more true than Kluwe's claims. Even if it is true, Tebow has the good sense to not say anything about it.
Feds Sue Buckyballs Founder, Still Ignore Colorado Marijuana
breeds in the far north, like the Snowy Owl, but during winter can be found throughout the US, especially in open spaces.
The 
John 1:(1-9), 10-18