Tuesday, January 7. 2020
It's about Antigone this time (I know somebody who named their daughter Antigone). I keep up with their fine podcasts at the gym.
 As a guy who can not face breakfast other than coffee with the occasional cigar, I rely on a protein shake for after my 2 and sometimes 3 mornings/wk of powerlifting. I don't know anybody who can or wants to eat food after a morning workout.
People ought to get about 20 gms of protein after a heavy weights session, so a good breakfast for heavy lifters (but not body-builders - not talking about them) would be a couple of hard-boiled eggs unless they are trying hard to put on weight. I can't stand solid food in the morning, so I do a protein shake (from Amazon) after a lifting hour and after a very tough calisthenics class too when they include more weights.
I throw some frozen berries or a banana in the blender for a little carbs etc. I use the vegetable protein powder cuz I became lactose-intolerant. Funny, tho - I seem to tolerate ice cream just fine...but I do not need to lose any fat anyway since Mrs. BD says I am "cut". I suspect I am naturally pudgy like one of my grandpas, but that's not going to happen. My Dad was 6'4", lean, and hard as rebar, but I sadly didn't get that gene. Gotta work with what we get.
With my daily workout plan (6-7 hrs/wk), I am supposed to have two slices of chicken or meat mid-day, and an apple or some raw vegetables. I try to do that too, but any mid-day food makes me sleepy and lazy. Not good for being productive and useful.
Real athletes who workout 4+ hrs/day have entirely different nutritional demands. At Maggie's we just address us ordinary fitness folks. Sedentary people? They do not need much food at all but, curiously, they have greater appetites than active people. Probably recreational/boredom/ritual feeding. Something to do.
"I used the wrong tactic. I should have told Congress I didn't want a wall. Then they would have built one right away."
Pres. Trump to Rush Limbaugh yesterday
 25 Words That Are Their Own Opposites - Stumble into the looking-glass world of contronyms.
Can Intermittent Fasting Reset Your Immune System?
Three meals/day is long obsolete except for manual laborers. If you want to be healthy, a protein shake after morning workout, an apple and a coffee for lunch. Meat for supper, preferably cow meat.
WHY DOCTORS THINK THEY’RE THE BEST
Val d'Isere: The doctor who hid a Jewish girl - and the resort that wants to forget
Irish Data Centers Are Killing Us With Carbon Pollution
Police Working on Premise that Arsonists Started Bushfires in Australia – 200 People Arrested So Far – 85% of Fires Blamed on Humans
Pre- & post-citizens by Victor Davis Hanson - On the meaning of citizenship in the twenty-first century.
Chelsea Clinton Hauls In $9 Million From Corporate Board Position
That's called the gig economy
Judge halts California’s new “gig worker” law that’s impacting truckers
"Gig workers" are basically the self-employed
UC-Berkeley Threatened With Lawsuit For Mandatory Diversity Statements In Hiring
'Great example for the rest of this country': Bloomberg sees California as model for U.S.
Sunday, January 5. 2020
One of my daughters likes to give me cool seeds for Christmas. Connecticut Field Pumpkins, Heritage Cukes, etc. Of course, the hassle is starting them indoors without a greenhouse. (I need one. My friend's wife had a nice one with heat, light, etc and she kept tropical lizards in it too, to eat bugs and spiders. Problem was, the small ones tended to escape outside in the summer when the vents opened so they had a good adventure of freedom until the first frost.)
We told you about Mouse Melons (aka Mexican Gherkins) in a past post. They are great, grow like weeds, perfect in salads or just to munch in the garden.
It seems the fun trial for this year will be Ground Cherries. We'll see. I guess they are in the nighshade family.
 In our part of the US Northeast, we have these seasons of recreation:
Winter:
- doing exciting things in NYC or Boston, cultural stuff or sports-watching
- skiing if you can afford it
- hiking if not too icy, or snow-shoeing
- Paddle tennis - sweat when it's 10 degrees F, at night under lights
- Deer hunting if you can stand the boredom ( I can not, but I like to eat them)
Spring:
- Planning or planting the damn gardens - why do we bother?
- Fly fishing
- Turkey hunting
- Hikes
Summer:
- Boating, and saltwater fishing
- Presidential Range hikes, with bugs
- Weeding the f-ing gardens
- Vacations on salt water or in the mountains, with swims
- mowing the meadows in August
- Outdoor tennis - just a wonderful joy
- Skeet, trap, and clays - to get back into it
Fall:
- bird hunting, duck hunting
- best time for mountain hiking
- Fox hunting - for needed insane adrenaline
- best time for Euroland trips
- chain saw fun, and stocking up on firewood
Year-round
- horse-riding, indoors or out
- Tennis, indoors or out
With a world-wide readership, what do you like? Or do you live in a place without seasons?
John 1:(1-9), 10-18
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
1:3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being
1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
1:7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
1:8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
1:10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.
1:11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
1:12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,
1:13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
1:15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'")
1:16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
1:17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
Saturday, January 4. 2020
A quick summary: Sex differences and personality.
Bear in mind that these are bell curve data.
Much of the stuff we own, or which we even value, has minimal monetary value or might even cost money to get rid of. It might be useful to us or of sentimental value or other sorts of personal value (that is true value, emotional value I suppose) but of no value to anybody else. Talking about meaning.
Monetary value is less than you think, and the effort to unload a possession of any monetary value is large. Just try getting rid of an over-aged piano. Pianos have life spans, unlike violins.
American Scholar's podcast on The Global Garage Sale. The interviewer is a bit of a nut, but the guy is interesting. They are both sort-of anti-consumption with a minimalist ethic. For the "environment," of course...Lots of our "good" stuff ends up in landfills despire our virtuous intentions.
I do know some people for whom the only value of anything is monetary.
Sunday Morning
I
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.
II
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.
III
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.
IV
She says, “I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?”
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured
As April’s green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.
V
She says, “But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.”
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.
VI
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.
VII
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.
VIII
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
Friday, January 3. 2020
High-School Wrestling Was Fading. Then Came The Girls.
Oxford Historian On The 1619 Project: ‘A Preposterous And One-Dimensional Reading’ Of American History
From TNR: When “Biology” Becomes a Cover for Anti-Trans Bigotry - How an employment case in the United Kingdom revealed the ugly contours of anti-trans discrimination
Expert: Half of UK Farmland Must Be Abandoned
DeVos restores fairness to campus sexual misconduct cases - A survey suggests that attempts to address sexual assault on campus, although well intentioned, have done so at the expense of fairness, and, in many cases, the truth.
U.S. jobless claims dip to 222,000 to end 2019 back near a half-century low
Literally the first word that WaPo prints in 2020 is a lie.
Joy Reid Calls Attack on US Embassy in Baghdad “Trump’s Benghazi” – Don Jr. Drops in and Sets Her Straight
Joe Biden’s Latest Ad About Trump Is a Complete Lie
MSNBC: By Bombing Hezbollah, Trump Is Bombing ‘War Heroes’…
America just took out the world’s no. 1 bad guy
This Is Not 1979, And Donald Trump Is Not Jimmy Carter
USA Today Op-Ed: It Is 'Terrifying' Other Parishioners Were Armed During Texas Church Shooting
The Fundamental Legitimacy of Donald Trump - The democracy-is-doomed crowd was wrong. Trump’s tyranny has never materialized.
Even CNN Is Calling out Chuck Schumer’s Impeachment Trial ‘Impartiality’ Hypocrisy
The United States as a Developing Nation
Scandinavia: Can The New “Parental Team” Replace Marriage?
Boris Johnson’s Victory and the Political Realignment Shaking Western Democracies
Former Google executive Ross LaJeunesse blasts company’s work in China - ‘Just when Google needed to double down on a commitment to human rights, it decided to instead chase bigger profits and an even higher stock price’
'This is the shareholders' money': Billionaire Warren Buffett argues that companies should stop making decisions based on their social beliefs
Kim Jong Un, Choose Your Future
He can't - he is China's pawn
Maximum Pressure on Iran Is Working. That’s Why It’s Lashing Out. Let’s Keep It Up.
With pro-Iran groups at helm, Iraq 'risks becoming pariah'
Thursday, January 2. 2020
On loan from The New Yorker
A reader wondered about an article about the politics of medical research, with Alzheimer's as an example.
Everybody knows that academic politics are ugly. Alzheimer's is uglier than that, and there is lots of money available too.
The problem with searches for cures is that the #1 risk factor for Alheimer's is genetic, via the maternal line. If your Mom has it, your odds for it are worrying but not certain. The second risk factor is being overweight. The viral idea doesn't really seem to fit with the genetic. Maybe they are synergistic? Who knows?
Genetic testing for Alheimer's risk is available at any age. With certain genetic conformations, your risk is almost certain. Bad news.
From all I have read about it (not an expert at all), the brain rot begins long (years, even decades) before there are obvious clinical symptoms other than, maybe, being less energetic, social, and driven. My amateur guess is that the brain tangles and brain shrinkage are not causal, but results of a genetic brain rot, a sort of programmed obsolescence.
"Cures" for genetically-weighted diseases are elusive, of course, because they are baked in the cake. Unbaking a cake is a tough challenge.
Carpe diem.
Is Notre-Dame Too Fragile to Be Saved? The cathedral’s rector says there is a “50 percent chance” that scaffolding will collapse, causing further damage
Policing Parents and Kids: The Year's 8 Most Paranoid Moments - And five examples of parents wisely letting their kids go—and grow.
History Without Truth - The 1619 Project has been thoroughly discredited, but many professional historians remain reluctant to criticize it.
In August, the New York Times Magazine unveiled its 1619 Project, which dates the founding of the United States not to 1776, with the Declaration of Independence, but to 1619, with the arrival of the first African slave. Five prominent historians (Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, James Oakes, Sean Wilentz, and Gordon Wood) challenged the Project’s thesis, first in interviews with a socialist website, then in a letter to the Times urging factual corrections. The paper responded dismissively, and the broader reaction among historians suggests that the profession isn’t up to the challenge of defending factual accuracy—at least, not if doing so threatens what many scholars see as the ideological greater good.
Two tribes aren’t recognized federally. Yet members won $500 million in minority contracts
How Cognitive Bias Destroyed the Livelihood of California’s Gig Workers. We ignore the intelligence trap at our own peril.
We have an implicit [but wrong] assumption that intelligence and rationality go together—or else why would we be so surprised when smart people do foolish things?
Related, 2019 Was Another One Of Those Tough Years For The "Experts"
Smart doesn't mean wise
The Most Absurd PC Moments of the 2010s
Two Professors at University of Wisconsin – La Crosse Are Leading the Way on ‘Fat Studies’
If at least 1/2 of Americans are fat, it hardly seems like an oppressed minority. It's normal in the USA.
The 'Transgender' Endgame
Some commentators are telling us that we never had it so good. They are even saying that the world never had it so good.
FREE STUFF, DEMOCRATIC PARTY STYLE
Turns Out, Trump’s ‘Evil’ ICE Raids Benefited American Workers
House Ethics Complaint Filed Against Rep. Omar
Get Ready for a Nasty 2020 Presidential Campaign
New York Times finally comes back to admitting Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election
Unable to find new fake news, Vox editor recycles old fake news
Democrat Rep. Al Green Admits ‘Genesis of Impeachment Was… When Trump Was Running For Office’
The "Afghanistan Papers" and the delusions of nation-building
Why It’s Time To Shut Down The Scandal-Plagued U.N. Palestinian Refugee Program
Wednesday, January 1. 2020
An old pal has opened a new commentary website covering Connecticut and some national policy.
The Red Line
 RIP: The Historian of Moral Revolution - Gertrude Himmelfarb argued that a great deal is lost when a society stops aiming for civic virtue and is content to aim merely for civility.
The Lost History Of The ‘City’ Of Brooklyn. It was once outshone by Manhattan, but this new book rediscovers New York's most interesting borough.
Anti-Semitism isn't about your political narrative
It’s America for the Commoners! Get Used to It, Wokies!
Three Years In, No Sign Of Trump’s Replacement For ObamaCare
A Retrospective on The Past Four Years of Fake News Trump Hysteria
Chuck Todd Suggests That Trump Voters 'Wanna Be Lied to' Because Noah's Ark or Something
NYT Reporter Implies Conservative Media Made Black Man Stab Hasidic Jews
NY Times Plays Defense for Iran: Claims Thousands of Organized Iranian al-Quds Thugs Storming US Embasssy in Iraq are Grieving “Mourners”
Mike Bloomberg targets doctors for racial 'reeducation'
If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart?
Buttigieg Tells Schoolkids American Founders ‘Did Not Understand Slavery Was A Bad Thing.’ He Gets Slammed For His Ignorance.
VDH: Impeachment Fallouts
How Not to Argue with Bill Barr
The ‘Deep State’ and the Impeachment Conspiracy - What did John Brennan know and when did he know it?
We Were Warned About The Deep State, But Refused To Listen
John Durham Is Investigating Deep State Coup Plotter John Brennan, and Other Deep State Coup Supporters Are "Concerned"
Hunter Biden Accused of $156M Counterfeiting Scheme With Burisma, CrowdStrike, Legal Filing Claims
Analysis: Trump gained little ground this year in China trade war
Fine with me. They are bad people.
'Shattered': Inside the secret battle to save America's undercover spies in the digital age
The U.S.-Iran Showdown Begins in Iraq - America hits Ktaib Hezbollah, one of Tehran’s most effective militias.
Fighting the Demonization of Israel at the International Criminal Court
Turkey’s Libyan Gambit Reveals Erdogan's Delusions of Grandeur
Book review: The Secret Files of the Soviet Union - Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western Complicity by Vladimir Bukovsky, translated from the Russian by Alyona Kojevnikov
Tuesday, December 31. 2019
The Maggie's Fitness for Life program includes about a one-hour session of aerobic endurance exercise per week. For true cardiac exercise, we include plenty of HIIT cardio whether in calisthenics or sprints. That tends to be anaerobic.
Why do we include the endurance work at all? For ordinary functionality. We figure that if you can swim for an hour, or do the stair machine or high-inclined treadmill for an hour, well then a 6-hour hike, a day of skiing or basketball ought to be manageable. We strongly oppose road running.
So pure endurance work is only about 15% of our program although we assume most people also do fun recreational things like sports or hiking which do not count as exertion. Mark Rippetoe has other ideas. He is convinced that endurance exercise is a waste of time, and sometimes deleterious.
He is a smart guy, and might be right. Our Maggie's program attempts to strike a balance between strength-building (2 hours/wk of powerlifts and accessory weights), calisthenics (athleticism, balance, agility, HIIT, some strength), and "cardio" (an hour total of HIIT intervals with good rest intervals, and an hour of strenuous but aerobic endurance things). No need to do the hour of HIIT, for example, at the same session. In fact, not a good idea. Mix and match 1/2 hours of different categories but if doing weights, always do them first.
Most fitness trainers consider an hour of endurance work as a "recovery day," but I do not. For me, a half hour on the Stairmaster and a half hour doing high incline walks and jogs on the treadmill leaves me limp for a while.
Final word of 2019: Exercise for fat loss is nonsense. That is 99% nutritional. However, exercise does reduce appetite.
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My question of the day: Why are Iranian troops, militias, and terrorists in Iraq?