Wednesday, March 24. 2021
I have been asked what use my levels of fitness are, and my reasons for pursuing fitness in the ways that I do.
Probably maintaining vigor is my first item, and a vigorous attitude towards life. I like to say "yes" to doing things. About five years ago I felt tired on a hunting trip, and I hated myself for it. That was my wake-up call. Does bedroom vitality matter too, and being appealing to a spouse? Um, yeah. Duh.
Second, the health issue. It is not about living longer because that is not up to us but to fate. Still, nobody wants to become overweight, frail, or rickety sooner than necessary.
Third, to be honest, is looking vital and fit instead of looking older. Posture and movement matter to others. Call it vanity, but it is much more than that. People react differently, as they do to clothing and manners.
Fourth (but not really fourth), I like to be able to do useful and fun things. I need to be able to hike over hill and dale for 12 miles, or scramble boulders, with Mrs. BD and friends. I need to be able to stack 2 cords of wood dumped in my courtyard (as I did this weekend) and to do all of the yard work I have time for. I need to be able to handle my chainsaw. If my right shoulder were not so damaged, I'd love to live on the tennis court. I guess I am restless and love physical activity. I need to be agile and useful on a boat too. I wish I had more sports but I have always had more enthusiasm than athletic talent.
Nutrition is one of my problems. I am not underweight, but I just do not enjoy eating anymore. Some love it, but for me it just is like required fuel no matter how tasty. I have had minimal appetite since I began my intensive exercise program some years ago so I force myself.
RJP keeps nagging me about strength. Fair enough, but two days of weights is all I can fit in right now. Pre-covid I was doing 2 1/2 hrs of weights/wk. Deads are the best thing for me. Regarding recovery, I may not do enough but I feel that I do. Whenever I feel unable to get out of bed at 4:30 AM after a powerlift day, I don't. I love feeling stronger but have competing goals.
 Image via Bookworm
Sharansky’s Exodus
True Liberal: Now Let Us Praise Naomi Wolf
One Year To Flatten Life As We Knew It
Former professor says Yale fired her over tweet on Trump, Dershowitz
Canceled
On gender madness, don’t let Canada be the future
The Dubious Origins of Long Covid - Echoes of chronic fatigue in the effort to blame the coronavirus for a host of questionable symptoms.
Like "chronic Lyme"
As obesity rates in America soar, new weight loss drugs are in the offing that offer hope
Drugs?
Suspect in Boulder Mass Shooting Identified as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa: ‘Very Anti-Social’
Deranged, and antisocial
Media, Activists Assumed Colorado Shooter Was White, Delete Posts, Pivot When His Identity Revealed
White House directs all agencies to refer to 'Biden-Harris administration'
In Wake Of Another Tragedy, Democrats Once Again Prove Commitment To ‘Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste’
Babylon Bee is dangerous
There is no cure for stupid
Betsy DeVos’s campus sex-assault rules need a tweak, not an overhaul
The Democrat Party Has Declared War on America
Teaching kids to be neoracists
Kids As Young As 7 Are Being Sent Across The Border Alone By Their Parents
"First Tangible Step" - Evanston, Illinois, Becomes First City To Pay Reparations To Blacks
How black do you have to be to get $? This is a tricky one.
Denmark Cracks Down on "Parallel Societies"
They missed the multicultural memo
It has to do with my gym + work schedule. They have changed a bit lately.
Tuesday, March 23. 2021
The guy believed that his "Universal Card" would "solve all of the problems of organization life."
It's more or less what the Chinese government is doing now.
From Montaigne's Humanity:
We flatter ourselves that we live in unprecedentedly hazardous, conflict-ridden, and changing times: but probably we have always lived in such times, and the memory of a safe, peaceful, and stable period is a trick of memory or the result of a defective grasp of history. Certainly, Montaigne could reasonably claim that he lived through the most momentous changes and the most perilous times. The dangers of his epoch were incomparably greater and nearer to the individual than those most of us like to frighten ourselves with today.
Sunday, March 21. 2021
After a year of restrictions, when can we declare that the pandemic is over?
I would say now, for sure. Around here, restaurants are full, pubs are full, and people seem back to normal other than the mask politeness when expected. No need to scare some innocent phobic.
There still some phobics out there, so be nice to them because they are truly fearful. They do not believe Science.
A Shandy is half beer and half some carbonated thing like bubbly lemonade, ginger ale or ginger beer, etc.
A light, refreshing drink.
In the northern half of the US anyway. Definitely, before any green emerges because the roots are already growing and hungry for weeks before any green shows.
I fertilized our garden beds last week. It will take some rain to sink it in. A good time to put down crabgrass preventer, and fert your nice lawns too.
I spread Preen at the same time in the flower and shrub borders. It works, sort-of.
Psalm 51:1-12
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
51:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
51:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
51:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
51:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
51:11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
Saturday, March 20. 2021
 The big owls - around here Great Horned and Barred - have already nested, but you can attract Screech Owls by putting up nesting boxes.
They are fun to have around.
I'll do my best to field readers' questions about the Maggie's Fitness for Life suggestions (which readers know includes sessions of heavy weights, sessions of calisthenics, and sessions of HIIT cardio plus maybe some plain "cardio."
Ask me, and I will attempt to explain the rationale. Bear in mind that exercise is not for fat loss
I keep getting caught up by our own anti-spam filter, so I will post further responses to questions here:
OG:
Unless somebody is a well-experienced gym rat, we recommend using an experienced trainer to make personal recommendations.
Injuries are avoided by correct techniques.
Road-running is terrible. Treadmill or trails, not so much.
Juan:
Most gyms are open now. For the weight-training part of your program bands are no substitute for dumbells and barbells, but are better than nothing.
Anon:
That is surely better than nothing, but I tend to view my workouts as a sort of torture. Then I derive the life benefits. We recommend balanced exercise programs, so one has to hate a lot of it. It hurts.
RJP asked us this question:
Since you bring up calisthenics again, I'll ask the same (unanswered) question from a previous post:
In your day-to-day life, where exactly are you applying all this hard-earned endurance? What makes you think you won't have enough endurance for those activities if you build up more strength?
Why do you think getting your squat and deadlift up will hamper your ability to do things like burpees?
Our program recommendations (4-6 hrs/wk) are designed for general life functionality. That includes sports and things like hiking 15 miles. It is "general," not designed for body-building or marathon-running.
Squats and deadlifts will not harm your burpees. Every category of exercise makes demands on, and builds on, different energy systems. Power, agility, and endurance are completely different. That's the reason for a mix.
I will welcome more questions...
Wednesday, March 17. 2021
The Threat to Academic Freedom: From Anecdotes to Data
Academia has become a closed system, a moral community defined by a set of sacred progressive values. The surge of no-platformings which took off in America in 2015 and hit Britain in 2018–19, or the fivefold jump in the rate of cancelling American academics which took place in 2019, present merely the tip of an iceberg of self-censorship and conformity. In this essay, I present extensive new survey data on the scale of the problem in the US, Canada, and Britain from my new report for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology entitled “Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship.”
 Harvard's Plan to Blot Out the Sun Is a Great Idea, Says Bill Gates
Columbia hosts six graduation ceremonies segregated by race, sexuality, income level
Replacing One Kind of ‘Conversion Therapy’ With Another
Mainstream Media Losing Their Minds Over Florida
Anthony Fauci’s Brand of Truth Telling - When asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to relate some of the lessons he’s learned as the face of the nation’s COVID-19 response over the last 13 months, Dr. Anthony Fauci had one lesson to relate: Tell the truth.
NYC Judge Removes 6-Year-Old From Mother Because She Didn’t Wear a Mask While Dropping Her Off at School
California teachers' unions discussing using COVID relief money for teacher bonuses, trips to Hawaii
Biden executive order will lead to due process deficits on campus
New Title IX regulations restored fair process — why try to overturn them?
Michigan Court Ruling Vindicates President Trump’s 2020 Claims, Finding Sec. Of State Violated Election Law
George Floyd Autonomous Zone Residents: HELP!
Left-Wing CNBC Forced To Admit: Russia & Iran Interfered With Election In 2020…
She agreed with Piers Morgan
To defeat woke tyrants, the rest of us must treat them like the monsters they are
Stimulus Bill as a Political Weapon? Democrats Are Counting on It.
Trump Warns Border Crisis "Will Get Much Worse" As Biden Pleads With Migrants "Don't Come Over"
CBS Reports DHS Has Detained 13,000+ Unaccompanied Kids at the Border, Calls It a 'Crisis
How Trump Got Control of the Border and Biden Threw it Away
Biden, Harris, Psaki and Other Top Staffers Afraid to Appear in Sunday News Shows
Tuesday, March 16. 2021
At Quillette. It begins:
Social justice activists have been arguing for some time that scientific societies and institutions need to address systemic sexism and racism in STEM disciplines. However, their rationale is often anything but scientific. For example, whenever percentages in faculty positions, test scores, or grant recipients in various disciplines do not match percentages of national average populations, racism or sexism is generally said to be the cause. This is in spite of the fact that no explicit examples of racism or sexism generally accompany the statistics. Correlation, after all, is not causation. Without some underlying mechanism or independent evidence to explain a correlation of observed outcomes with population statistics, inferring racism or sexism in academia as the cause is inappropriate...
One might have hoped for more rigor from the leadership of scientific societies and research institutions.
|
Fifty Years of 
Nathan Evans' sea shanty Wellerman 
The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance -