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.
A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land.
The Filipino version. I always thought the word was Philippino or something but I checked.
Anyway, we had a Filipino helper for years, when the kids were younger, and, without wanting to be racist, I still believe that they are the best people in the world. Besides their work ethic, they seem to be caring and loving souls. Yes, I know they like to eat dogs but that's a stretch for me.
She liked to make Filipino suppers, and I was all in on that. This was one of my favorites, served with white rice. The tripe is not required, but the peanut butter is, along with lots of pumpkin hunks:
On the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia down to the Gulf of Mexico, it's molting season for the Blue Crab.
Some people don't mind picking the meat out of these delicious Blue Crabs for crab salad, crab cakes, a crab boil, or She-crab soup, but my preference is Soft-Shelled, right after the molt. You just eat the whole juicy thing, feathers and all. No waste whatsoever.
Sometimes you will get a batch of crabs whose new shells have begun to firm up a little too much, and are too chewy. I don't like that. Chewy is fine, but hard is not.
If you have any sauteed crabs left-over in the fridge, you can put one on white bread with some mayonnaise and salt and pepper, and it might be the best sandwich in the world.
It was not long ago that being pudgy or having a bit of a gut signaled prosperity, and leanness signaled lower class. Now it's the opposite. With incredible food abundance, and with obesity always in the news, funding for nutrition-related studies has grown. So now we know a lot more about how insulin works and about how the three food categories (fats and oils, carbs, and protein) are handled by the body. We are also learning about how hunger and satiety work. It's quite interesting but complicated.
These are "First World issues." In our world of nutritional abundance, recreational, social, and emotional eating, and the constant temptation of food porn, "hunger" often does not denote a need for nutrition except for the skinny, and satiety is often over-ridden by habit, speed-eating, stomach-stretching, delicious foods, sugar-and-carb dosing, and insulin-resistance. That is what it means when overweight people, who have no pressing energy needs at all other than water, vitamins, and minerals, eat hungrily two or three times a day. We term that appetite "false hunger" not because the appetite is not subjectively experienced but because appetite has, for them, disconnected from nutritional need and satiety signals (which are very slow to go into effect). That luxury used to be only for the wealthy.
It's like the flip side of anorexia. Anorexia nervosa is famously difficult to ameliorate, but it is not too difficult for most pudgy or fat people to re-set their bio-psycho-social food-o-stat if they want to. For starters, that entails small portions, plenty of protein to satisfy the hormones, and very slow eating so as not to short-circuit the awareness of the moment at which "That's enough to sustain me, because I don't feel hunger anymore." That way, the "Eat 'til I'm filled or stuffed...now I'm stuffed" effect never has to happen.
In the Western world, "sufficient" can be the stopping point, not "filled." Except Thanksgiving, when feeling ill from getting stuffed with stuffing is expected.
Being too scrawny, with underdeveloped muscle and bone, is life-limiting and unhealthy, but not as life-limiting as carrying excess fat around with its lengthy list of associated ailments. There's no need to carry it on your body, because there's a pizza joint on every corner to prevent sudden death from starvation. Most people, fortunately, make themselves sensitive to satiety signals most of the time so most active adults are neither significantly under- or over-weight.
Obviously, little of this applies to most children and adolescents.
4:26 He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,
4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.
4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."
4:30 He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?
4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;
4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
It was inevitable, perhaps, that after science became ubiquitous and powerful, and very rich, that it would devolve into politics. Which is what the postmodernists (in part) argued all along.
Palestinianism Began with Nazism And Today Is Based on Antisemitism, Sexism, Homophobia and Denial of Human Rights. So Why Is the Left So in Love with It?
Another random post from Maggie's. Tooth care is a complete drag, whether at home or in the dental hyena's office.
I tend to do my tooth care in the shower, but I have always hated tooth care and anything related to dentistry. Having grown up with a dentist who thought novocaine was newfangled nonsense didn't help, but as a kid I was afraid of needles too.
Anyway, some of us are obsessive tooth-carers and some are less so.
Nowadays, we have lots of choices:
- Water-pic (my dentist wants me to use, but it's a hassle) - Old-fashioned toothbrush - Electric toothbrush (I use, but it tickles my palate to annoyance) - Sonic toothbrush (I want to try one)
Maybe permanent fake implants would be a good plan. (Photo is not me, thank God).
Willie Mays, RIP
On the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia down to the Gulf of Mexico, it's molting season for the 
Part 1 
Another random post from Maggie's. Tooth care is a complete drag, whether at home or in the dental hyena's office.