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.
Good posture makes people look better. It makes you look younger and inspires confidence, and it feels good.
Good posture is a habit, and so is poor posture. The military is effective at training good posture. Typical causes of poor posture are psychological, lack of training, aging, and physical weakness.
If you want to improve your posture, just imagine your Mom reminding to to sit up, or stand up, straight, all day long. Then you can work on your abdominal and back muscles, which are what make standing upright possible. Here you go: Exercises for Better Posture.
Life training matters, and can only come from home. Moms say "Stand up straight, look people in the eye, have a firm handshake and a pleasant but reserved demeanor. Nobody wants to know your natural self."
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather “What can I and my compatriots do through government” to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant.
Everybody is a felon. There are 40-50,000 federal crimes, but even the government cannot count them all, but they can do a legal search and find one that fits you. Do you know what they all are?Ignorance of the law is no defense.
This inventive and rollicking organ piece is embedded in Western civilization's collective memory, and cannot help but influence anybody on earth who has attempted to make music since he (we think) composed it. It must be fun to play, especially with the footwork on the pedals:
No pain, no gain? This is about gratifications and pleasures earned in the completion of things one has the impulse to avoid which require possibly unpleasant exertion, effort or discipline in contrast to easy, unearned gratifications.
The capacity to delay gratification is considered a measure of maturity and life-competence, but we all struggle with something ever day. The enemies are "I don't feel like it" or "I feel like it." In other words, self-indulgence. The enemy is us.
The earned gratifications of accomplishment tend to feel better afterwards; unearned gratifications (eg food, booze and drugs, shopping, trips and vacations, watching TV, romantic affairs, surfing the web, etc, etc.) tend to feel good while doing but often worse after because they are easy pleasures or cheap thrills which have costs which are often out of proportion to meaningful gains.
I'll confess some of my personal routine challenges, some trivial and some not:
- Getting to church - hate to dress and drag us there on Sunday morning, but always glad we went - The gym and/or painful ("Feel the burn") exercising. No pain, no gain. - house cleaning (I don't mind doing laundry though - thank God for electricity) - Paperwork, paying bills, and tax prep - Facing/doing scary or confrontational things - eg "difficult conversations" - Dieting - Calling Mom when I have nothing to talk about - throwing a dinner party or cocktail party - Studying things you need to know but aren't interested in - giving up wine for Lent - going to the doctor or dentist - boat cleaning - social events where you don't know anybody - but then you meet interesting people - meeting with estate planners, revising the will - getting a kid through college - attending professional meetings - weddings (boring except for the families) and wakes/funerals (difficult to face, for me)
What's on your list of things you feel like avoiding, but feel good after you do them?
In recent years, we have had authors and commenters come and go. We're a voluntary commune. (nb: We encourage commenters. Please comment, readers, if you have anything to say even if it's not brilliant. Just show good manners, please. Polite disagreement - with hard facts - is always welcome.)
Our collective favorite Commenter was Marianne Matthews, a wonderfully-reflective Texan, a Barnard grad, a Taurus (the handy-dandy firearm, not the car) owner and a Greenwich Village folksinger in her youth who died in her early 80s with a pulmonary embolism. We miss her. She once mailed me, at my request, a CD of her recordings with a photo of her lovely self playing guitar. She loved NYC, but she loved her Columbia-trained oil-engineer husband more. She always wanted to come back from Houston after he retired, but was responsibly and lovingly caring for him there when I believe he developed a dementia.
Also missing - our old irascible pal Dr. Mercury. No mystery there. He's a ramblin' man, and rambled on to other things after a while (I do not know what) but left behind the useful Dr. Merc's Computer Corner.
Missing in Action: Buddy Larson, a popular and frequent Texan commenter who always brought something to the table, either deep, witty, or usually both. That's a mystery. I hope he is OK, and I hope we didn't do anything to piss him off.
Capt. Tom: He wrote posts for us for a while, but seems to have lost his writing desire. Writer's block? Perhaps the muse might return. I hope so, because he has lots of experience to share, and can write about photography, fishing, boating, engineering, guitars, and all sorts of things if he wants to. Maybe he is too busy living. He does find time to comment on occasion under his real name, Tom Francis. A Yankee, moved to the Carolinas.
Roger de Hauteville? Not to worry. He is around and healthy, but locked in the uninsulated attic for the moment. Those Norman barbarians need time-outs on a regular basis. He'll be back after the next war. In fact, we have planned a job of work for him which naturally involves Sicilia.
Bruce Kesler, our San Diego/New Yorker. He's sort-of on Sabbatical, but he is in touch with me almost daily and (among other emailers) contributes to our morning links, for which I am quite grateful. At some point, I think he may be back on the payroll unless he gets a better offer (he has had many newspaper op-eds published). And he has a day job plus young kids at home. Anyway, always take the better offer if you can get one!
Here's a poor recording of Marianne in New York, in her younger days (1950s), probably in some folkie den in the Village, long before Joanie, Bob, Phil Ochs, Sebastian, and all the others:
The only poverty this girl suffers from is a poverty of the soul–made plain by her obvious disregard for all those who love her and who have sacrificed to give her every advantage in life.
... But Miriam Weeks will never escape the choices she has made, never be able to leave it all behind. Friends, relatives, neighbors, future relationships. These memories and images will live on forever – following her and the ones who love her for the rest of their lives.
Deciphered Roman Soldier’s Papyrus to Family Complains: ‘You Never Wrote Back to Me’
- See more at:
http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/deciphered-roman-soldier-s-papyrus-family-complains-you-never-wrote-back#sthash.5P9I7Zl5.dpuf
As Wesley draws to a conclusion, he asked, “Dost thou thus believe?” If so, “then the peace of God is in thy heart, and sorrow and sighing flee away. Thou art no longer in doubt of the love of God; it is clear as the noonday sun. This repentance, this faith, this peace, joy, love; this change from glory to glory is what the wisdom of the world has voted to be madness, mere enthusiasm, utter distraction.”
For years, I have been explaining here that dietary fats are not a meaningful factor in heart disease (arterial disease). Your cholesterol level most likely doesn't matter either unless you have familial hyperlipidemia or diabetes. I believe those outliers skewed earlier studies.)
The smaller, more artery-clogging particles are increased not by saturated fat, but by sugary foods and an excess of carbohydrates, Dr. Chowdhury said. “It’s the high carbohydrate or sugary diet that should be the focus of dietary guidelines,” he said. “If anything is driving your low-density lipoproteins in a more adverse way, it’s carbohydrates.”
Once again, it's the carbs that are the problem. Best thing is to deal with that carb addiction.
John Gardiner's wonderful new Bach bio spent three or four pages on this piece. It's a cantata on death - Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is the very best time) - ending with joy. Bach wrote it at 21. The musical structure and the key changes are complex, and over my head despite reading the pages twice and listening to the lovely and emotional piece around ten times.
Bach was rarely, if ever, satisfied with his singers. He was a singer himself. I suspect that he would be thrilled by the skill of our singers today.
Academic leftists used to be interested in ideas and arguments; much less so today.
Now, the lefties just use name-calling and "Shut up" as debating tools.
As a youth, I used to debate my Conservative friends over beers and/or a little weed. My political evolution from adolescent Lefty to conservatarian began happening when I entered the adult world and learned more about human nature and how it is expressed, in part, through the miracle of markets. My evolution continues, because each year I realize more how precious and rare freedom is, and how dangerous and oppressive the State is.
- Thomas Sowell loves Amy Chua's “The Triple Package”. Who knew that Nigerian immigrants did so well?
- Krauthammer's Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics. I am halfway through it, and it is a delight. Not much politics in it, but lots of life, with Charles' impeccable prose. He writes pretty well about baseball, which is one measure of a writer in my view.
- Our friend did a brief trailer for his book about Ethiopian kids in Israel, Sheba and Solomon's Return:
Heading back up to Killington tomorrow (where it was a balmy -4 degrees F this morning) for my last few days of skiing this season. I need a few more days on those bumps on Superstar. Carpe diem.
Who counts "vacation days"? I have equity in our company, we're making money - and anyway, I'm skiing with my boss and we plan to meet some gals at the pubs. America is a great country!
Speaking of time away from work , this guy is our employee and he can't be fired:
...the president might consider rearranging his work schedule. Last year came the news that Mr. Obama was unaware of the problems plaguing his health-care website until after its rollout and that he never once had a private meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius between July 2010 and November 2013. How does something like that happen?
An answer of sorts comes in an article by Sean Blanda on "How Barack Obama Gets Things Done" on the 99U website. The president, Mr. Blanda reports, wakes up at seven o'clock. He works out 45 minutes a day every day, not including his regular basketball games. He watches a lot of "SportsCenter." Dinner each night with his family. To limit "decision fatigue," he likes to set policy via memos where he can check the box on "agree," "disagree," or "let's discuss."
A 1965 picture of the psychedelic rock band which eventually became Pink Floyd includes their original lead guitarist, Rado Klose (second from the right). Rado left the band shortly after this picture was taken, before the name change and growth of the band's popularity.
Rado was born in Cambridge in 1945, his father a refugee from Nazi Germany. He was studying architecture and science when he met Syd Barrett and Roger Waters. He joined them, along with Nick Mason and Richard Wright, to perform under a variety of band names. He was less interested in rock, enjoyingjazz and blues. He was also a serious student and chose to leave the band to pursue his studies. He is believed to have been one of their most talented members. Clearly having an artistic streak, he followed his interests into photography.
He became an acclaimed photographer, and some of his work is available online now. His guitar work is available on two recorded tracks which are available, a cover of Slim Harpo's I'm a King Bee and the original Lucy Leave when the band was called The Tea Set. These often appear on Pink Floyd bootlegs. Klose remained close to his friends in the music community, occasionally working on some albums in the 2000's.
Life insurance benefits can be tax-free. Inheritances over $5.3 million are taxed — with rates going up to 40 percent. That's why the life insurers lobby like crazy to save the estate tax.
Guessing Games And Climate ‘Science’ - They seem so certain when predicting what long-term weather has in store for us, but don't be fooled. Read the fine print in their pronouncements and the truth is revealed: those much-quoted experts admit they don't have a clue
The European Union’s characterization of the Crimean vote to join Russia as “undemocratic” is laced with stunning hypocrisy given that the EU ignored its own citizens when they rejected the European Constitution on numerous occasions.
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New dinosaur 
For years, I have been explaining here that dietary fats are not a meaningful factor in heart disease (arterial disease). Your cholesterol level most likely doesn't matter either unless you have familial hyperlipidemia or diabetes. I believe those outliers skewed earlier studies.) 
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Heading back up to Killington tomorrow (where it was a balmy -4 degrees F this morning) for my last few days of skiing this season. I need a few more days on those bumps on Superstar. Carpe diem.
1. Where the heck is that airplane?