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.
Judging people of the past by the moral standards of today is grotesque intellectual arrogance, what you expect from 19-year-old sophomores demanding trigger warnings. The people of the past lived in a different moral universe, just as the people of the future will.
I will never forget two things that happened on Pentecost about twelve years ago. On the way to church, a dumb Box Turtle was perplexed in the middle of the busy road. Naturally, I stopped traffic and helped him across. Not a dove, but a cool turtle. Then during church, a bird appeared inside the sanctuary. Not a dove, but a Chimney Swift who had come down the chimney of the old church. We brought him outdoors and I felt blessed.
Acts 2:1-21
2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
2:2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
2:3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
2:5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.
2:6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.
2:7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
2:8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
2:9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
2:10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
2:11 Cretans and Arabs--in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."
2:12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"
2:13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."
2:14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.
2:15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.
2:16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
2:17 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
2:18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
2:19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
2:20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.
2:21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
Much or most of what you know about health, nutrition, and medical practice is already obsolete, but it can take years for new information to be accepted by doctors, hospitals and, God knows, the government.
It's a truism that all knowledge is transient. I sometimes catch myself thinking "I can't believe they used to believe...." before I call myself on it and realize that in fifty years people will be saying that about us.
Dr. Semmelweiss possibly did more for women than any other person in history, or at least in medical history. He is a stand-out in the medical pantheon, but acceptance of his ideas was extremely slow and he was thought a nut and a crank by the medical establishment.
His life was a sad one, and short. I suspect he died of neurosyphilis, known then as General Paresis of the Insane. He might have gotten syphilis from the many prostitutes he tended to, or from prostitutes who tended to him.
They sent us a packing list for our upcoming hiking expedition in the Outer Hebrides, between Scotland and Iceland, where it is chilly with some rain almost daily in June. Wilderness Scotland. Hiking poles? You betcha. It's rocky hills and marshy dells for 6-7 hour daily marches. If the daily reward is a little whiskey, I am game.
Mrs. BD has a thing about remote islands. Always has. And I am a pretty good sport even though generally I am more content working than traveling: Happy wife, happy life.
Few people live out there anymore. Those with any sense came to America generations ago. So did Trump's mother, who was a poor girl from Stornoway
Celebrities who still haven’t learned that their endorsement of anyone or anything usually yields the opposite of the intended effect also weighed in on Trump’s move. Hollywood’s most prolific climate celeb — the bed-hopping, jet-setting, yacht-cruising Leo DiCaprio — said he hoped Trump would make the “moral” decision to stay in Paris, then tweeted shortly after the president’s announcement that “today, our planet suffered.” Unhinged showgirl Bette Midler tweeted that Trump’s exit gave “BigOil a windfall” and that “there has never in US history been such a destructive megalomaniac in the WH. Thank you to US press and other numbskulls who put him there.”
Mark Ruffalo, known more for his environmental activism than for his marginal acting, tweeted that if Trump left Paris, the president would “have the death of whole nations on his hands. People will be looking to the USA for retribution for what they loose [sic].” Actress Alyssa Milano, who is approximately 0 for 432 on helping political candidates win, tweeted: “Oh my God, you really are a monster. @realDonaldTrump.” But the topper could go to George Takei of Star Trek fame, who tweeted: “Trump is having us pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. Too bad someone didn’t tell his father that he shoulda pulled out too.”''
... what most “self-esteem” advocates fail to understand is that other-reliant “self-esteem” is a contradiction in terms. Far from building self-esteem, many of the counselors, teachers, and parents of yesteryear obstructed its growth by getting kids hooked on a spiritual I.V. drip of external validation. Instead of self-esteem, this created a dependence on “other-esteem.”
It is no wonder then that today we are faced with the (often exaggerated) phenomenon of young, entitled, high-maintenance validation-junkies in the classroom and the workplace. Their self-esteem has been crippled by being, on the one hand, atrophied by the psychic crutches of arbitrary authoritarian approval, and, on the other hand, repeatedly fractured by the psychic cudgels of arbitrary authoritarian disapproval.
Post-Brexit Britain will no longer be bound by an EU Code of Conduct that seeks to police the online speech of over 500 million citizens and ban ‘illegal online hate speech’. Or an EU law that encourages the criminalisation of ‘insult’. Or a proposed EU law that undermines fundamental freedoms by purging Europe of every last shred of supposed ‘discrimination’ […] There is just one, small problem: when it comes to censorship and the quashing of civil liberties, the UK doesn’t need any encouragement from the EU, or anybody else.
Besides being assigned grueling trips, daily links, editing posts, and other responsibilities like a day job , I have been assigned this whole fitness/conditioning research task. Working for Maggie is a tough job and the pay sucks.
Now Maggie has assigned me to try out some of my new gym's 6 am athleticism classes. Despite being in much better shape and stronger than I was 2 years ago, this turned out to be a serious challenge. One hour of mixed calisthenics with NO RESTING. The no resting to catch your breath was the killer. Also, I hit the wall with the number of Burpees with push-ups and jumps. The hour included 50 total mixed sorts of burpees, and at some point I could no longer get my knees up under me. Failure. I was not the only one having a little trouble with that, but almost the only one. I struggled with all of the sit-ups too. Proof that I am not yet as fit as I need to be - it was a good test. My only ego-supporting thought was that lots of middle-aged guys would have a very tough time completing this class at all.
There were about 40 people in the class, a third men - regular guys, not lifters. All except one guy had some grey-hairs and one was a fit 75 year-old who beat me in one of the 300-meter rows. The gals aged about 35-65, all very gung-ho. Not all were svelte but they were strong and agile women who certainly exercised often, probably almost daily. Horrible thumping music but I understand why. The trainer wanted us to exercise to the beat but I could not keep that pace most of the time. All weights were 5-10 lb dumbells - no heavies but it was the reps that got you.
These people are playing with fire. It is political, but probably enabled by ignorance. The countless crazy fantasies of youth can be sort-of interesting to some, but adults are supposed to be the ones with intact reality-testing. Grown-ups with decent reality-testing are the only buffers against the really hard and dangerous realities of life.
Peterson, for one thing, has a knack for framing large topics. That is a job of a teacher (or a preacher). He offers the listener a big frame, a map, in which to fill in the details. That is something which is difficult to do on one's own without expertise.
In my career as a student, I had a couple of History teachers and profs who never set the frame: Battle of Thermopylae? What, when why, how, and why should I care? Plenty of reasons to be interested, but it wasn't told so it was disembodied information.
Peterson's hypomanic lectures teach Psychology, Anthropology, Politics, Religion, Mythology, History - they are interdisciplinary explosions. It's all from the tragic, fierce, fact-facing view of the world.
With things around now like The Great Courses, and Peterson, for examples, any curious person in the world can get a high-level university education if they want it. Cliche though it is, a formal education is just a door to further learning for those who want it.
We'll continue to post Peterson's explosions, and to urge our readers to try out some of The Great Courses as alternatives to TV.
In this piece, he focuses on IQ as a limiting factor in pursuing goals, but makes the more important point that personality factors are likely more important in life choices and career success. Unfortunately, he ignores certain factors, like passion and interest but this is just a short segment.
Fact: 50% of Americans have below average IQs, so it's not too hard for Watters to find these people. Both political parties compete hard for their votes.
Photo is a large Gneiss ledge, a remnant of the great snow-capped mountain range which ran through New England in the distant past
Mrs. BD and I are in hiking mode now, especially with the cool Spring weather. (We have only been mostly casual or urban hikers in the past, but we're getting more serious now to the point of a visit to the big sale at REI for waterproof hiking gear.) We picked a steep, deep woodsy 5-miler on Saturday as a warm-up.
In New England, deep woods means relatively mature hardwood with a high canopy. Occasional Hemlock groves. Not very much understory. Whether that is due to deer or just the nature of things I don't know. I do know the Indians hated the understory, and often burned it out. Mature hardwood forest doesn't host a lot of wildlife except streamside. There are some warblers and other things up in the canopy which you can hear but not see without hassle. When there is a powerline cut, suddenly there are lots of birds. Edges, streams, and marshes are where most of the life is.
Birds seen or heard in the deep woods: Wood Pewee, Ovenbird (lots of them), Robin (yes, Robins are woodland thrushes), Wood Thrush, Veery, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Prairie Warbler, Flicker, Downy Woodpecker.
RURAL AMERICA IS THE NEW ‘INNER CITY’. It's difficult to maintain the vision of pastoral innocent wholesomeness. Non-tourist rural areas are rapidly becoming creepy. There is no fix for this evolution.
The Trump backlash was a slap in the face to most, utterly unexpected because they simply don’t even acknowledge that a world exists outside of their gated communities, the suburban soccer moms and Whole Foods customers have no clue that they just destroyed the entire coal industry or put people out of work as they hurry to Pilates. Given that ignorance, Trump was a political asteroid impact, the most unlikely and devastating thing many of them had ever seen as he crashed into their world. The anger from them is one of class, the upending of their perceived social status by someone so beneath them as to not even warrant an opinion. It is difficult to put this concept into words if you have not experienced those social circles, the level of outrage would be akin to a janitor walking into an Exxon Mobile board meeting and overruling the entire table of executives.
The anger is palpable within the Beltway and it’s coastal fiefdoms, which is understandable. The idea that someone who shakes parmesan from a can contravened the wishes of those who can taste the difference between serrano and iberico Jamón is simply unacceptable...
Donald Trump has been given a great gift in that his gaffes are seen by most Americans in the context of an obsessed and unhinged Democratic-media nexus. He is pitted against a new fusion party of media elites and aging political functionaries, who all believe that America should operate on their norms, the norms of Washington, New York, Hollywood, and Malibu — all places that symbolize, to most Americans, exactly how the country has gone wrong.
The Crossfit Games are like the Olympics of general fitness. Contestants have to be generalists, not specialists. Each year, they vary the events. For example, for 2017 there will be no barbells, just sandbags instead. It's a race, too. Speed, endurance, strength, power. Pure Sparta.
Seems like a wild and crazy event. Some highlights from 2016 -
I have to admire the outstanding fitness of these guys and gals. Crossfit is actually mainly for ordinary people. Those are the pros. These sorts of events always remind me of the Upper Class Twit of the Year Tournament. Everybody wants to excel at something
Markets 
Girl stuns America's Got Talent judges 
