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.
It's a centuries-old complaint that Christian morality detached from its religious roots can turn into a monstrous and terrifying thing. Take utilitarianism, take angry moralizers, take witch trials, take communism, and a hundred more examples of humanist evil.
Christianity is not primarily about morals and resistance to humanity's animal nature. I think Christ was clear about that in word and deed. I think he was clear about it, and that Paul elaborated on the religious truth that transcendent blessings like those of faith, mercy, love and kindness, hope and good cheer, are consequences nurtured through interactions with God and Christ through the Holy Spirit. Not rules, but secondary effects which can bind people together through God's graciousness and His tough sort of love.
As One Cosmos often explains, earthly gravity pulls us to the x-axis, the horizontal plane, of daily life and its struggles, but there is the vertical axis, the transcendent axis, available to us and for which we were born.
It's been part of my religious "journey" (I hate that smarmy expression) to come to realize that spiritual warfare is not Good vs Bad or Evil, but the inner battle of holding highest what is most high vs. the temptation to worship false idols. "I, me, mine," etc etc. Even pride in virtue is a false idol - it is about Self Love.
"Stop that, Bird Dog! No more preaching! You ain't no eddicated Preacher!" Well, ok, but Advent is our chance to be pregnant, in a spiritual sense, with holiness, and a time to have a dramatic chance to feel reborn ourselves as naked babies. That's the story of A Christmas Carol.
Matthew 18:2
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Happy Advent. Whether my theology is correct or not.
3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,
3:2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
3:3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
3:4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
3:5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
3:6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
I think I missed Columbus Day while I was in Italy. Christoforo Columbo was, of course, from the Republic of Genoa. He spoke Italian and Spanish, and, I'd like to think, Portuguese too since he had a Portuguese mistress.
Anyway, when I think about Columbus I like to remember the details of our sailing cruise (yes, with sails) in 2015 from Lisbon down the coast to Morocco and then out to the Canary Islands where Columbus always loaded up stuff for his trans-Atlantic trips.
Evert time our craft left a harbor (Lisbon, Casablanca, Agadir, Tenerife, Palmas, Gomera, etc, our Captain would blast this Vangelis piece over the ship's speakers, so it is seared - seared - into my memory. After all, this was roughly the route that Columbus took on the beginnings of his trips to the West Indies. We saw his house in the Canaries. Still there.
The teams of good guys who replaced bad wood with azic and repainted our house thought it was fun to renovate one of my wren houses too during their lunch breaks (sometimes chickadees take it, though. I don't care).
“Extraordinary...This book is Zimmer at his best: obliterating misconceptions about science with gentle prose. He brings the reader on his journey of discovery as he visits laboratory after laboratory, peering at mutant mosquitoes and talking to scientists about traces of Neanderthal ancestry within his own genome. Any fan of his previous books or his journalism will appreciate this work. But so, too, will parents wishing to understand the magnitude of the legacy they’re bequeathing to their children, people who want to grasp their history through genetic ancestry testing and those seeking a fuller context for the discussions about race and genetics so prevalent today.”
Met a fellow at a holiday party, and we were talking about travel. He said his travel days were long done and that he had seen enough of the world. He no longer even wants to drive to Vermont unless it's a hunting trip. His wife is headed to Petra with some friends in January, but he refuses to go with them.
I loved his story. (Details altered enough for privacy and happily OKed by the guy)
On average, the scientists found, people who identified as African-American had genes that were only 73.2 percent African. European genes accounted for 24 percent of their DNA, while .8 percent came from Native Americans.
Latinos, on the other hand, had genes that were on average 65.1 percent European, 18 percent Native American, and 6.2 percent African. The researchers found that European-Americans had genomes that were on average 98.6 percent European, .19 percent African, and .18 Native American.
Warren is "possibly" as much as .09 Native American, well below the white American average. For native American DNA, look to the Indians themselves, or the Latinos. Come to think of it, how much Latino blood does Beto have?
I change my daily workout program somewhat, about every four months, while still keeping within the basic Maggie's Fitness For Life format of roughly 1/3 weights, 1/3 calis, 1/3 cardio. Change is to keep my physical adaptation off balance and fresh, and also to address perceived weaknesses and imbalances in my program (with my genius trainer's advice, of course). It's a good idea to change routines sometimes. The only basic rule is to move without comfort for an hour or so daily.
Remember, I am not a spring chicken but I'll be damned if I ever want to feel, or act, old. I will not retire either because that sounds like a kind of preliminary death to me. When something strikes me down, as it will all of us, then OK because I will have gone the distance.
The main change now is to work on cardio endurance, running in particular.
My changes are below the fold. Remember, we're interested in hearing about your workout programs too, and your progress -
It's the time of year when people begin forcing bulbs indoors, especially Paperwhite narcissus but other bulbs too.
The trick we learned but keep forgetting from my garden club Mom was to regularly give those forced bulbs a shot of cheap vodka or gin.
Paperwhites and Amaryllis benefit most from some booze. I don't know how it works, but they grow stouter, somewhat less tall and tippy stalks that way. No effect on the blooms.
We rarely have hard booze in the house, but I'll pick up some cheap vodka to keep the bulbs happy and strong.
Unlike all normal people, I never have my phone with me unless I am traveling and might need to phone AAA. Not paranoid, just no need for it. Mrs. BD says I am a Luddite.
In one way or another, most books are about human nature. This one is now a best-seller: 
It's a centuries-old complaint that Christian morality detached from its religious roots can turn into a monstrous and terrifying thing. Take utilitarianism, take angry moralizers, take witch trials, take communism, and a hundred more examples of humanist evil. 
The teams of good guys who replaced bad wood with azic and repainted our house thought it was fun to renovate one of my wren houses too during their lunch breaks (sometimes chickadees take it, though. I don't care).
A non-technical book about heredity.
Met a fellow at a holiday party, and we were talking about travel. He said his travel days were long done and that he had seen enough of the world. He no longer even wants to drive to Vermont unless it's a hunting trip. His wife is headed to
77 years ago,
The incredible termite mounds of Brazil: 
Vanderleun: 
It's the time of year when people begin forcing bulbs indoors, especially Paperwhite narcissus but other bulbs too.
Image via 
What It Was Like