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.
VDH: Our Bankrupt Nomenklatura - Take all the signature brand names that the Baby Boomers inherited from prior generations—Harvard, Yale, the New York Times, NPR, CNN, the Oscars, the NFL, the NBA, the FBI, the CIA, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, and a host of others. And then ask whether they enhanced or diminished such inheritances?
The sons and I went yesterday to the Gene Autry Museum Of The American West, in north Griffith Park in Los Angeles. I'd heard good things but in all my decades in Southern California hadn't been there. If you are looking for a truly wonderful experience, go. There are costumes and homages to all the Western film cowboys from the silents to recent, including many Black ones in films you probably never heard of. The museum has the complete Colt company collection of firearms from the 1800's forward, including those specially made for US Presidents. And much more.
There was one room showing clips from Gene Autry films. One clip only showed the song below, without the intro or follow-up. The jaws dropped among some of the women in the room, while the men (if they could get away with it) smiled.
Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.
Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency...
14:7 Although our iniquities testify against us, act, O LORD, for your name's sake; our apostasies indeed are many, and we have sinned against you.
14:8 O hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveler turning aside for the night?
14:9 Why should you be like someone confused, like a mighty warrior who cannot give help? Yet you, O LORD, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us!
14:10 Thus says the LORD concerning this people: Truly they have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet; therefore the LORD does not accept them, now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.
14:19 Have you completely rejected Judah? Does your heart loathe Zion? Why have you struck us down so that there is no healing for us? We look for peace, but find no good; for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.
14:20 We acknowledge our wickedness, O LORD, the iniquity of our ancestors, for we have sinned against you.
14:21 Do not spurn us, for your name's sake; do not dishonor your glorious throne; remember and do not break your covenant with us.
14:22 Can any idols of the nations bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O LORD our God? We set our hope on you, for it is you who do all this.
Blake was one of a kind. He completed his formal education at age 10 and became an engraver. However, later he attended the Royal Academy of Art for a while. Contemporaries thought he was mad. He had a wonderful life.
Why did the FBI etc take all the trouble to entrap, or whatever, the patriot Flynn, and destroy his life? That's my question. Gen. Flynn has been a better American than any of those dirty SOBs who wanted a scalp, any scalp connected to Trump.
If Powell is doing this work pro bono, God bless her. I believe Flynn had to sell his house to cover legal defence over a year ago. The General is broke.
Joseph Henry Green (1791-1863), an English surgeon who became the literary executor of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The word was spoken upon checking his own pulse.
Joseph Henry Green, a surgeon and professor of anatomy, suffered from inherited gout and died of an acute seizure at his house in 1863.
An account of his final moments has been given by Sir John Simon:
“I would show that not even the last sudden agony of death ruffled his serenity of mind, or rendered him unthoughtful of others. No terrors, no selfish regrets, no reproachful memories, were there. The few tender parting words which he had yet to speak, he spoke. And to the servants who had gathered grieving round him, he said, ‘While I have breath, let me thank you all for your kindness and attention to me’.
Next, to his doctor, who quickly entered – his neighbour and old pupil, Mr. Carter – he significantly, and pointing to the region of his heart, said – ‘congestion’. After which, he in silence set his finger to his wrist, and visibly noted to himself the successive feeble pulses which were but just between him and death. Presently he said – ‘stopped’. And this was the very end. It was as if even to die were an act of his own grand self-government. For at once, with the warning word still scarce beyond his lips, suddenly the stately head drooped aside, passive and defunct for ever. And then, to the loving eyes that watched him, ‘his face was again all young and beautiful’. The bodily heart, it is true, had become more pulseless clay; broken was the pitcher at the fountain, broken at the cistern the wheel; but, for yet a moment amid the nightfall, the pure spiritual life could be discerned, moulding for the last time into conformity with itself the features which thenceforth were for the tomb.”
You have to admire someone who takes his own pulse and pronounces himself dead. Now that’s cool.
Somewhere around the time that "new math" became an educational fad, "whole word" reading was developed. Like New Math, the reasons for a new method were never made clear because everybody had been learning to read just fine with "phonics," otherwise known as "sounding it out."
We're in another era now. Now, there is "New, new math" from Common Core that nobody can understand. Supposedly it's meant to offer a deeper understanding of numbers. There is no more plain long division even though that old division sign was a great tool.
Will the government education machine finally accept that phonics is the easiest way to read? K–12: Phonics Is Winning
Audubon had a great time in the USA. A hero of mine. He was a fine diarist too. He also became a heck of a shot. What many do not know is that one reason his bird images are often in awkward positions is that he generally painted them from specimens he had shot.
As an aside, Roger Tory Peterson's prints are excellent too. Audubon was, of course, an inspiration to him. No dead birds.
I avoid podcasts mostly, but Scott Adams' daily podcasts are a hoot.
He is not a Conservative, more of a free-thinker (claims to be a Bernie guy) who does the news and loves to think outside the box. Engaging fellow, smarter than me, and relentlessly happy. Here's today's. He might become a daily habit for me because he lights up my brain with cleverness and humor. Can find humor in anything, which is a good attitude.
Too bad he's on California time, because he'd be good with my morning coffees.
The Enduring Value of Herman Melville
Why this physician 
Photo: The Leonardo sculpture
"To lengthen the life, lessen the meals."