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 ballet-trained Tommy Rall branched out into Broadway, movie acting, singing, opera. And painting. Is it fair that talent is unequally-distributed? Many talents in one package, via neo's The man who could do everything: Tommy Rall
Too often, the functionally-impaired abandon families which might offer shelter and support, reject treatment which might help if only a little, and refuse government assistance either out of pride or misunderstanding. People often write about "more services" and more "help for addicts," etc., but these things are commonly rejected.
Currently, jails are said to be the largest mental health facilities in the US. Have we have returned to Bedlam? More likely, family homes are the largest, jails second, and the streets third. Rightly or wrongly, government-coerced "help" was politically and morally abandoned.
If you are a parent or relative of an impaired person, and have some assets, best thing is to make a trust for them with a good trustee. The low-functioning relative might reject all that, but it's all one can do. Once upon a time, there were permanent "retreats" and "homes" for such people, but when government got in the game they became hellholes.
I have no solution. Functioning at a high level is challenging enough for all of us even without tragic difficulties.
"We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."
For Urban Hikers, Pocket Guide App. It's fun to get lost sometimes, though. Interesting things happen.
It's now good urban (and rural hiking) season. Get out there, friends, and do 9 miles with friends and family. Pizza and beer afterwards is the Maggie's Way.
Conservative fiscal policy, coupled with the missteps of rival states, helped bolster the Connecticut economy throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. New York State’s top income-tax rate surged into the double-digits around 1960, and an extra city-level tax was imposed in 1966. New York’s combined top state and city gross income-tax rate reached a peak of 19.7 percent in 1976. By contrast, Connecticut’s gross income-tax rate was zero, and would remain so until the early 1990s. During New York’s fiscal crisis, debates about the city’s future often invoked fears of residents and businesses fleeing to Connecticut, where taxes were lower and services widely considered superior.
This lovely Yankee state, "The Land of Steady Habits," is broke. It is still a wealthy state, thanks to Fairfield County's proximity to NYC, but the rest of the state is on a downhill slope. The prosperous cities are a distant memory. The government is now mainly ruled by the unions which drove manufacturing away. Currently, the tax structure is driving wealthy residents away. Six months + one day gets you Florida residency, so you can summer in CT with your friends.
2:2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.
2:3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.
2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us
2:5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--
2:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
2:7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--
2:9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
2:10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
How often do most people wear evening gowns and tuxes nowadays in the US? Less and less often, for certain in New England, as even the upper classes and aristocracy prefer more informal events and dress.
Where the instructions "Formal attire" used to mean gowns and dinner dress fro men, now it means dresses and suits. Dress has obviously become small-d democratized. There is a loss in that, a loss of elegance at the least.
We're now at the point where even formal black or white-tie weddings (evenings only, please) look like silly costume shows. That ten year-old gown should be fine, and who cares?
I recently realized that I own enough formal wear, footwear, outerwear, sportswear, riding wear, ski gear, boating gear, and athletic gear to last my lifetime, not including new tennis racquets. I am done accumulating it as long as my size doesn't change, which will not.
Crazy. Guys need to hang out with guys. Now, no doubt guys will make unofficial secret clubs to smoke cigars and tell lies and dirty jokes, to plan hunting outings, and to mock their castrati administrators
To be cast out and shunned as an academic is not only to lose your identity but also to lose your entire way of life, from your social circles, your sense of intellectual accomplishment, and even your ability to provide for yourself and your family. Once you are shunned from an academic institution there is little chance you will ever make it back in. The University system is too competitive for second chances.
Is Prof. Peterson the only brave and manly professor in the USA? (Correction: in North America)
If you think Russiagate is real, then you will probably conclude that Sessions, Prince, and Page are all part of a single, monstrous criminal conspiracy—and that Adam Entous is one of the most important journalists in American history, an indefatigable shoe-leather reporter who helped whistleblowers inside the federal government put the truth before the American public, like Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Neil Sheehan combined. If you think the collusion story is nonsense, then Entous is just a political operative with a convenient byline. And if you think Russiagate is a campaign of political warfare waged in the shadows by bureaucrats who violated the privacy of American citizens in order to undo election results they disagreed with, then Entous is something worse—an asset whom sectors of the intelligence community have come to rely on in order to manipulate the public.
My theory is that the "deep state" and "inside Washington" were determined to save the country and their careers from the lunatic Trump who obviously had no clue about how "inside Washington" works - and didn't even care. In many ways, Trump had lived in a bigger world than they ever had, a world of national and international commerce, media, sports, beautiful girls, and real estate. He took the blows, was knocked down many times, always got back up - and knew how to manage media. He always knew that politicians were low, devious people like him, but easily manipulated.
I believe that many laws were broken in the process of preventing Trump, in the confidence that they could drag Hillary across the finish line. That did not happen, and Freak-out ensued. However, blowing up "Inside Washington" is part of why Trump was elected.
The "Imperial City" is elite, arrogant, ingrown, bien-pansant, too social, and too wealthy. They only talk to each other, and they are all dependent on highly-paid government jobs. Had I the power, I would move every federal agency to a different middle-sized city, and just keep State and Defense in the DC area. DC was built on a Potomac swamp, is a swamp entirely disconnected from regular people.
Trump, with his countless flaws, was the only answer for us peasants. He had to be knee-capped at least. And there we find ourselves.
We made a good point here recently. The reason people go to the gym or go to classes or to a trainer for an hour 6 or 7 days/week is to try to compress a full-day's worth of physical activity into a manageable amount of time.
Thus we raise the intensity. Instead of lifting light rocks from the field all day, we do 4 sets of heavy deadlifts, and done. Instead of jogging for one or two hours, we do 30-45-second sprints.
Furthermore, a good balanced program can pack that in with minimal or no risk of injury, unlike somebody who shovel-digs ditches all day. The thing is, in the western world very few jobs require day-long heavy lifting any more. That is all mechanized.
Today, even professional tennis players (and all athletes) do their gym programs in addition to their sport training. Playing a sport is more of a use of fitness rather than a cause of fitness. Even many people who do a lot of work with their bodies (eg carpenters) go to the gym to stay fit for their work.
As readers know from endless repetition, we recommend, for general fitness for life for men and women, a balanced program of resistance training (heavy weights), calisthenics, and cardio (meaning heart rate elevated well-above comfort). We also recommend nutrition approaches to meet your fitness goals.
Alexis de Tocqueville celebrated American women’s worldliness as a youthful humor that evolves into a matronly reserve. In Democracy in America, he described the daughters of our young republic and predicted “that the social changes which bring nearer to the same level the father and son, the master and servant, and superiors and inferiors generally speaking, will raise woman and make her more and more the equal of man.” Between cloistered superiority—for America owes its “singular prosperity and growing strength . . . to the superiority of their women”...
Nock’s Volley Gun: 
3 Ways Cigar Shops 
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