Sunday, January 31. 2016
Medical advances keep guys in their 70s and 80s on the ski slopes, the basketballs courts, the tennis courts - and at work. The concept of retirement is already obsolete. Obsolete to the point that, in America, men only reluctantly admit that they are retired today.
Our senior partner is 84, and at work every day. He is the Socrates of our firm and he lifts at the gym before work. Last year we voted him 6 wks paid vacation per year, in gratitude. But if he is on a big case, of course he can't and would not go anywhere. We have no retirement age, and offer no retirement benefits. However, we can, and do, vote partners out unless we love them.
Most guys over 65 are working at something, and want to be. Second careers, and third careers, are common today. Defined benefit pensions have disappeared outside of government employees and even there, for many, these are being replaced by IRAs. The short historical period of those 30-40 year retirements is gone outside of government union jobs. Unions still idealize not-working as if that were a wonderful thing. It seems not to be for most people.
It's not just about money, and it's not just men. Women too need to feel productive, contributive, active in the world. The alternative is to feel either dependent or useless.
Overall, it's a good thing. The wise old owls have much to offer the arrogant young bucks and buckettes. The late 1800s Bismarckian notion of a few years of leisurely rest before death is as obsolete as most of the Progressive ideas of the 1920s in the US (mostly borrowed from Bismarck if not from Marx). Mind you, neither Bismarck nor Marx ever held a real job, or could even hammer a nail.
For the "common good," I would set Social Security at 75, and means test it too based on assets and income.
Math educational fads come and go. While all the average Joe needs is practical math (even if that practical math is advanced calculus or statistics), very few have the IQ or interest to go deep into theoretical math. It's too abstract.
Few college applicants even have the IQ to master basic calc or stats, hence Math for Poets and Rocks for Jocks.
Like the New Math in the 1960s (Multiply 2X3 in Base 6 - what?), the math experts want the kids to dig into the mysterious depths of numbers. It will never happen.
One educator’s reform efforts in the early 20th century say a lot about current attacks on the Common Core
They are late-winter/ early Spring-blooming, shade-loving perennials with pleasant foliage.
Heronswood offers a number of varieties. So does Bluestone.
Some varieties bloom in the snow, long before spring bulbs.
Here's how to take care of your Hellebores. Seems like a good idea to plant them in bunches. (In our view here at the farm, there are only two types of planting plans - massed - all of one species - and specimen plants. Random mixes are just a mess, we believe, most of the time. I violate the rule often)
I am going to get me some and see how they do.
(I wonder about the impact of online plant sellers on local nurseries and the old standard plant mail-order catalogues. Must be like the impact of Amazon on booksellers. Nurseries cannot compete with the online selections. Just look at Hosta Patch - 500 varieties of Hostas.)
I recently read somebody questioning how the "Greatest Generation" - meaning the WW 2 warriors, makers, and builders - could be so great if they spawned the ridiculous Boomers.
Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation by Joe Queenan.
How does it happen that so many people from one generation can end up with so much foolishness and self-absorption in common? Queenan is tough on his peers and on himself, mocking everything from the obsession with staying young and "eating healthy" to the fad for "tag team" funerals with the clergy as an accessory.
You will never touch "organic balsamic," a "heritage tomato" or a free range turkey again without a sense of your own absurdity.
Boomers will see themselves almost too clearly in this book. Laugh or cry? Your choice, but the book's mirror could cause a boomer to want to off himself due to self-disgust. The good part is that it offers one good laugh per page, the bad part is that it offers a horror of self-recognition on every page too.
1 Corinthians 13:1-1
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
13:2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
13:3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
13:6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
13:7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
13:8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
13:9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
13:10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Paul is not talking about romance (despite all of the stupid weddings that use this) - or about any ordinary things. Not a human relationship manual. He is preaching theologically about how Christ's light can shine through us if we let it, and lead us to worship God and Christ and be changed by that from a gong to something else, something more Christ-like and less human.
From a readers, Brant landing on Long Island Sound yesterday.
Saturday, January 30. 2016
 Yes, it is fine. Although it looks and can taste carby, it is not. It's a close relative of the tomato but more fibrous. Thus, like tomato and no many vegetables, basically carb-free and nutrition-free, but tasty and fun to eat.
It's a pretty good substitute for carbs, in fact. I like it grilled, sauteed in olive oil, or steamed or sauteed with tomato and summer squash. I can do without eggplant parmesan.
How do our readers like to cook eggplant?
Love without conditions is meaningless.
Doesn't it depend on what the meaning of love is? We all have standards and expectations for relationships. Somebody said that romance is chemistry but love is a decision.
 Toon via Lucianne
Dentists Are Removing Too Many Wisdom Teeth
They took mine at 25, and took my wisdom with them. Claimed they didn't fit in my mouth.
Party Political Broadcast (Choreographed) - Monty Python
The Disastrous New Urban Agenda - Unable to spend their way into a progressive future, Democratic mayors have turned to regulation as a panacea
Still seeking utopia on the backs on the people
How Bad Incentives Undermine the Scientific Process
300 scientists send letter to Congress accusing NOAA of cooking the books on climate change
Should Charter Schools Be Allowed to Push Out Difficult Kids?
Catholic Guilt? The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy Behind a Lurid Rape Case
Otherkin Rights Now!
"...we live in an age where the line between reality, insanity and fantasy is arbitrary."
I am a Bird Dog
New Mandatory Diversity Training For Students At Mizzou Focuses On Taco Costumes
"First they came for our tacos..." But I hate tacos
Britain Is A Free Country — Thanks To The Queen
Students: Liberate Yourself from ‘Safe Spaces’
Feminists go medieval
"Why do feminists, on the one hand, claim that there are no natural
differences between male and female and yet, on the other hand,
constantly criticize men for typical masculine behavior?"
Public Spaces Then and Now - After a generation of improvement, New Yorkers sense something changing— and not for the better.
Beware: Wal-Mart's Raises Are Not a Victory
Liberal Distortions of Welfare Reform
Statistically, single motherhood is as dumb as dropping out of high school. There is no cure for stupid and, shockingly, outside Lake Wobegon a full half of Americans have below-average IQs.
Union membership in Wisconsin plummets in wake of GOP measures
Given the choice, many quit the unions
Obamacare’s Cost per Beneficiary Explodes with Shrinking Enrollment
It was designed to fail, a feature not a bug
Great moments in government: HHS handed children to human traffickers
Is there still hope for Conservatism?
Why I’m Supporting Hillary Clinton, With Joy and Without Apologies - I’ve come to feel passion for Clinton herself, and for the movement that supports her.
"Passion"? "Movement"?
MSNBC: FBI’s Hillary Investigation ‘Far More Advanced’ Than Public Knows
Trump at heart is an outer borough man
Yep, the real thing. Queens. Amusingly, Bernie an outer borough guy too - Brooklyn.
Hillary: “I just can’t tell you how it feels to be in a room with so many people I
do know and have worked with and admired and appreciate to be here in
Westchester County having a chance to take a little breather from Iowa”
Donald Trump Is Shocking, Vulgar and Right - And, my dear fellow Republicans, he's all your fault.
Good stuff
It's Not the Debate. It's the Focus Group
The Insiders: The failed Obama presidency is what fuels Trump and sinks Clinton
GOP Debate Showed What the Republican Primary Looks Like Without Donald Trump - It’s not more libertarian, but it is lot more substantive.
Veiling Statues to Please the Mullahs: What the covering up of Roman art in deference to President Rouhani really means.
They don't like pretty girls? Did they cover up the naked guy statues too?
Europe’s Near Future Summed Up in One Picture
European far-right, nationalist parties meet in Milan
Why "far right"?By American standards, they seem fairly normal.
German woman prefers rapists
Sheesh
Europe’s Near Future Summed Up in One Picture
 Sailing to Byzantium (1933)
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
(Neoneo was reminded of this poem, here.) The first verse feels stolen from Hopkins, doesn't it?
Friday, January 29. 2016
 Aka Shepherd's Pie. Big family party tomorrow. I am making the innards tonight because these stew-like things are always better the next day. This recipe, basically, with ground lamb and doubling the recipe. I am adding frozen corn (maize to your furriners) and some wine, gibier sauce, and raspberry jelly to it, to enrich it. I'll simmer it 20 minutes longer to reduce the sauce and mingle the flavors before throwing in the peas and corn.
Winter peasant food. Moussaka is great too, same idea. A friend served us antelope moussaka a while ago. Delicious.
Reposted, from Robin Hanson's piece:
Food isn’t about Nutrition
Clothes aren’t about Comfort
Bedrooms aren’t about Sleep
Marriage isn’t about Romance
Talk isn’t about Info
Laughter isn’t about Jokes
Charity isn’t about Helping
Church isn’t about God
Art isn’t about Insight
Medicine isn’t about Health
Consulting isn’t about Advice
School isn’t about Learning
Research isn’t about Progress
Politics isn’t about Policy
 From all the polls over recent years, I seem to be in the mainstream which means I really don't care. Let it do what it wants. More warmth would be great for humans and would not hurt the cuddly polar bears who have gone through warm periods in the past.
Insofar as I love cold and snow and skiing, and grew up playing hockey on frozen ponds with bonfires on the banks at dusk with girls and smuggled Southern Comfort, I think a cooling climate would be a human danger. It will occur, though, in time. Hope I will not be here then.
I fully endorse this article by Prof. Singer: Climate Change: The Burden of Proof
Leaving right now for a long weekend in Vermont. See you on the Killington bumps, or in the cozy pub around 4:30 near the fire. Life is good.
Don't be a crank. Push back against the cranks. They will never be happy, or have a good time. Carpe diem.
 The anti-oxidant scam
Famous British desserts in pictures
Boa vs. Coyote
Before Europe’s Intrusion - A 17th-century map reinforces what few other
than historians of China have known: It was an open and diverse world
with a long tradition of maritime commerce.
If Your Church Makes Christianity ‘Cool’ And Comfortable, You Should Find A New Church
Who do we blame for fat people?
National Association of Scholars calls for restoration of intellectual freedom to higher education
“Personality is a capitalist construct”
HuffPo: Christians ‘Can View Muhammad as a Prophet,’ Brought ‘Love, Peace’
Rolling Stone Rape Fabulist Ordered to Release Communications
US: 48.9% of Union Members Worked for Government in 2015
How To Get Revenge With A Football by Marco Rubio (video)
What is at Stake for America in Bernie vs. Hillary - The revolution will either destroy America or the Left.
With Hillary Floundering, Democrat Media Machine Goes After Bernie
A good point: Trump and Bernie are 3rd party candidates inside parties
It's 12 O'Clock High for the Traditional Conservative Establishment - The Traditional Conservative Establishment's Obsolescence
The EU wants to tax food
Europe’s Moral Bankruptcy
Sweden announces it may expel up to 80,000 ‘asylum seekers’
Police In German City Allegedly Let Refugees Shoplift
Online anti-refugee posts lead to offline visits by Dutch police
Danish Teen to Be Punished for Using Pepper Spray to Hold Off Rapist
Muslim migrants not as stupid and simple as politically-correct Europeans seem to believe:
It’s almost funny seeing Europeans trying politely to teach their conquerors how not to treat those whom they have conquered. I wonder how long it will take before the Europeans figure out that they’re no longer in the driver’s seat. And then I wonder whether they’ll be able or willing to mount a counter-strike, or whether the twelve-hundred year-long Islamic jihad against Europe will finally have succeeded.
“Personality is a capitalist construct”
Thursday, January 28. 2016
Wednesday, January 27. 2016
Here are many of the reasons that counting calories for weight-maintenance and weight loss does not work: The Calorie Is Broken
Unfortunately, they omit one of the more important considerations, which is that our bodies handle the calories in carbs differently from the calories in a juicy steak. All calories are not equal.
Our general rules:
- If you work out hard over 3 days/wk and are happy with your physique, eat enough carbs for energy and eat enough protein for muscle repair. Not a ton, but some. An egg or two and 2 slices of meat daily is plenty of pure protein for the average-sized hard exerciser who works with weights. Not enough for Rocky Balboa. Adults who do not do much hard muscle work do not need much protein except for enjoyment.
- If happy with your weight and condition, eat whatever you feel like. Pizza is good. So is ice cream.
- To lose weight efficiently, quit all carbs except for a little yoghurt or a glass of milk or something like that. Focus on protein and veggies as fillers.
- Don't bother counting calories. Dietary fats and oils have plenty of calories, but can not make you gain body fat.
- Cardio exercise is good for conditioning, but you can't lose weight by doing it unless you do it 6 hrs/day. Only anorectics do that.
Is all poetry lyrical poetry? Does it matter? In my view, poetry (and drama) are meant to be heard, not read. I am not, however, a professor of literature.
Why poetry should be heard, not seen:
Gioia writes: “I suspect one thing that hurt poetry was being too well taught.” While professing his admiration for them, Gioia blames the “New Critics” of the mid-20th century — “R.P. Blackmur, Allen Tate, Kenneth Burke, Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, and Yvor Winters” — for inadvertently alienating the public by inspiring generations of teachers to treat poems as difficult texts to be deciphered like the Rosetta Stone, rather than as enjoyable scripts for oral performance. Poetry was less like dance or drama than like philology or philosophy.
 Photo from here.
How Iowa Hijacked Our Democracy
... it turns out that if you dare to question the premise of microaggressions, you will be called names and there will be shoving and punching.
Shoveling snow in The Multi-Culti Wonderland
Turning Clutter Into Joy
Old stuff is interesting
To be happier, start thinking more about your death
Want to Avoid Another ‘Big Short’? Try Some Personal Responsibility
7 Reasons to Rethink Sending Your Child to Public School
As Population Ages, Where Are the Geriatricians?
Every Internist is mainly a geriatrician
Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess scorches big government
Decades of Big Government Result in Massive Doubts It Fixes Anything - So why is more big government on the menu for the election?
People want big government, more "services," more "help" - but unintrusive big government with less tax. Can't have both
12 signs America is on the decline
No measures of personal freedom from government?
When Americans have more faith in the military than the political class, democracy is in trouble.
Climatism is a foreign assault on America - The aggressor is not another nation-state, but an alliance of UN agencies and environmental NGOs.
Memo To Hillary And Bernie: The Public Doesn’t Care About Your Priorities
Hillary and the Law of the Jungle
Jeb Bush's attacks on Rubio are pissing everybody off
Not being a gentleman
Police officers flee angry mob in Swedish refugee center through back door
15 Year-Old Migrant Stabs Swedish Refugee Center Worker to Death
"Gangs" Of "All-Male" Moroccan Migrant Children “Take Over” Stockholm Train Station; Steal, Grope, Beat Women
France Declares Permanent Police State - Prime Minister envisions war that will last generations
Holocaust Remembrance: Dugo Does it with Falafel
The Madness of Frau Merkel
In Europe and at home, Angela Merkel’s refugee policy is being blown away
UN Chief Calls Palestinian Terror Attacks Just 'Human Nature' Reacting to 'Occupation'
TEN YEARS OF HAMAS RULE: THE PALESTINIANS MUST SOLVE THEIR DIVIDE BEFORE PEACE WITH ISRAEL
The fall of the Ottoman Empire
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