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.
Here at Maggie's, we are convinced that a degree of financial security is a more meaningful goal than retirement. At the same time, we seem to feel that a miserly life is a sterile one and that life without skiing and boating is a wasted one. There's a balance somewhere. Even if you have some bucks in the bank, picking and choosing expenditures carefully on their life/family enhancement makes sense. In those cases, we like spending a lot to make it great and memorable. Penny-wise and adventure foolish.
I believe in creating great memories to enjoy when I'm over the hill.
A friend sent me this link and quote, with his comment about Fleck:
This guy Ludwik Fleck was an MD virologist. Really interesting fellow and life. He was put in concentration camp by Nazis and told to make vaccine against cholera to give to soldiers. He made the vaccine, vaccinated his fellow inmates and gave barrels of neutralized (useless) vaccine to the Germans. Lived to emigrate to Israel. Notice how they call him a Polish-Jewish scientist.; would be like calling me a German-Jewish or Polish-Jewish scientist. I think he was a fore-runner to Thomas Kuhn.
"When people begin to exchange ideas, a thought collective arises, bonded by a specific mood, and as a result of a series of understandings and misunderstandings a peculiar thought style is developed. When a thought style becomes sufficiently sophisticated, the collective divides itself into an esoteric circle (professionals) and an exoteric circle (laymen). A thought style consists of the active elements, which shape ways in which members of the collective see and think about the world, and of the passive elements, the sum of which is perceived as an “objective reality”. What we call “facts”, are social constructs: only what is true to culture is true to nature. Thought styles are often incommensurable: what is a fact to the members of a thought collective A sometimes does not exist to the members of a thought collective B, and a thought that is significant and true to the members of A may sometimes be false or meaningless for members of B."
Today's pic is a Calabash Tree (not to be confused with the African Calabash Vine) as seen on a St. Lucia jungle hike. It is odd to see, in the tropics, fruits growing directly out of trunks.
Feb. 15th is the normal and usually-reliable date for the blackbirds (flocks of Red-wings, Grackles, Cowbirds) to begin to arrive in my neck of the woods, but not this year. I think there's more snow cover than they want to deal with, even in the swamps. I'll give them an extra week this year and blame it on global cooling.
Not a bird, but I found a cute White-Footed Mouse in my birdseed bag late this afternoon. I like those little buggers, happy to feed them too. Picked him up by the tail, gave him a little pat on the head, and put him back.
This is the way America is supposed to be: It Takes a Certain Kind of Village -Rallying to save a beloved local institution, D.C. neighbors show what real community looks like.
A sense of local community, "community spirit" if you will, can only arise organically and spontaneously. An outsider cannot make it happen with a few rounds of Kumbaya. In my limited experience, these things are less likely to occur in wealthy communities and in God-forsaken inner cities.
I do not think De Tocqueville experienced either of those during his remarkable study of America. I suspect that most Maggie's readers are ready to serve their communities when needed. It's the Yankee spirit - do what needs to be done outside of government.
Over the last 25 years the number of administrative employees at U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled, according to a joint study by the New England Center of Investigative Reporting and the American Institutes for Research. The ratio of nonacademic positions to faculty positions doubled at both public and private institutions. Overall, the industry has added an average of 87 administrative positions per day, a rate has scarcely slowed since the economic downturn, despite tuition increases. Even more surprising, academic institutions have added more administrative employees despite part-time faculty taking on more teaching duties than full-time professors.
Why? Who are these people and what do they do all day?
Guys gotta do what guys gotta do, and sometimes they have to get banged up in the process. I applaud these male efforts - and female efforts - to remain in the game and not to quit despite the risks to bones, pride, etc.
A medical colleague emailed me a photo of his own left tibia this weekend, acquired when skiing at Jay Peak. Ouch. An MD degree is not required for this diagnosis. For a layperson, this is a version of a "broken leg." This will need pins or a plate or something. Some metal and some screws, and I think he'll miss a day or two of work.
What happens when a coconut falls in the jungle, and no-one hears it?
It grows new coconut trees.
The geographical origins of the Coconut Palm are debated, but this useful and ornamental tree has spread around the tropics by man and probably via ocean currents too. This pic of Coconut Palms sprouting from fallen coconuts was in the jungles of St. Lucia last week.
Sultan's piece that we linked this morning, Our State of Police, is a stimulating one. I had never thought about these things from this angle before. One quote:
"Oppressing everyone to avoid oppressing anyone is the egalitarian ethos gone mad."
Of course, we are talking about the sorts of insoluble problems that arise in a non-totalitarian society, problems rooted in the many "flaws" in human nature. Another quote:
The left can't fix the social problems that, in some cases its welfare state helped cause. It certainly can't fix those that predate its intervention. Its efforts are all the more hopeless because it attributes the cause to its usual suspects of capitalism and intolerance so that it never addresses the problems, instead it uses people from failed societies as ammo in a cultural war. The right's tactics temporarily contain the worst of the violence, but not its expansion or its causes.
No society or culture can be conflict-free, nor can even any family or tribe or anything. We must be humble when thinking about "solutions" of all sorts. It has been said that Conservatives like me temperamentally embrace the Tragic View of life as contrasted with utopian views, and there is something to that. It is, indeed, the story of man's fall - broken from the very start.
I am not referring to Washington and Lincoln, two very fine and important fellows and the latter was a politician (who brought about America's most horrible and probably pointless war, but that's another subject). It's about two other shapers of American life and I admire both of them.
Is today a holiday? Not for me. My team will be in the office until midnight at least, preparing a big presentation to a client for tomorrow morning. No excuses. We are ordinary Americans, not great ones. We must keep making things happen or we will end up on food stamps instead of on ski trips. That is motivation. You can relax when you're dead.
I've...become a blogger, and enjoy the ease and freedom of the form: it's a bit like making a paper airplane and then watching it take wing below your window.
A free ad for WQXR online. This thing improves life, and I enjoy the articulation of the music announcers and music commenters. Too bad everybody can't speak in those graceful tones.
Since the NYT sold the station and they became listener-sponsored and lowered their power, I can't receive them anymore on my tuners. Very sad for us because I like good music played big.
Now how do I route it through good speakers via my amps?
Around 4 million acres of California farms are dependent on irrigation. Without imported or diverted water, those acres cannot grow crops reliably, and never did grow much before irrigation.
It's been a dry year in California and Oregon, but these things happen. California has never had enough water, especially in southern California. As usual in dry places, people fight over water: California Drought Is Not About ‘Climate Change’ – It’s About Policy
I appreciate many of your responses and found them educating, in particular those instances when having a shotgun or rifle may have prevented a home invasion or assault. I don't know of a site where these can be recorded and shared with a larger population and I am certain there would be concerns that this would be used against gun owners and individuals by some government agency but it might balance some of the anti gun arguments.
As for the stories in the media, dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is. A friend of mine who worked at CBS said the news director in New York had one criterion for the line up of stories on the local evening in news: "If it bleeds it leads." That has not and will not change. The issue of carrying firearms at all times is probably more of a regional issue. But did the retired police officer really need to have his weapon with him at a movie theater with his wife in what sounds like a peaceful neighborhood? It doesn't matter who said what to whom, it matters that back in the day in the Bronx those words might have sent fists flying not bullets. And if the other guy is too big and intimidating, stand down or at least ask yourself if your pride is worth taking a beating for.
We respect and value - with a deep sensitivity to cereal differences - hot breakfast cereals from strange, exotic, far-away cultures like Montana, etc. Here's what we like (besides English muffins):
Being Yankees, we are also partial to Apple Pie for breakfast (that's what it used to be made for), but you must not buy that at the store - there are some things in life you would never buy. Also great for breakfast - leftover cold pizza.
Readers know that we also love Chipped Beef on toast, but a quarter of an Apple Pie (a multicultural tarte tatin will work, too), two coffees and a couple of smokes will get anyone ready for a cold, rugged day of work in the drafty old office.
5:21 "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.'
5:22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.
5:23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you,
5:24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.
5:25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.
5:26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
5:27 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'
5:28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
5:30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
5:31 "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'
5:32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
5:33 "Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.'
5:34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
5:35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
5:36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
5:37 Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.
Today's pic is a 
Feb. 15th is the normal and usually-reliable date for the blackbirds (flocks of Red-wings, Grackles, Cowbirds) to begin to arrive in my neck of the woods, but not this year. I think there's more snow cover than they want to deal with, even in the swamps. I'll give them an extra week this year and blame it on global cooling.
Transgender kids: 
On blogging at age 93, from The New Yorker's 
This is a repost: