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.
Physical (and mental) fitness begin slowly going downhill after age 30-35 and accelerate thereafter. Deconditioning by avoiding strenuous exertion makes it worse. I am a skeptic about mental exercise, but not about the role of exercise in slowing natural physical decline.
A variety of social forces extradited muscle from respectable mainstream health. Muscularity once suggested physical labor and therefore a lower class station. More recently body builders hijacked the mesomorphic, minting steroid-fueled Rodin caricatures that were anything but a model of health.
Muscle also has been perceived as anti-intellectual. In the organ kingdom, it is the antithesis of the exalted brain, as in brain or brawn. It is our brain that distinguishes us from the great apes. Even within the muscle category one finds a hierarchy. Cardiac muscle appeared to carry none of skeletal muscle’s stigma. Academics might have jogged, meatheads pumped iron...
Skeletal muscles, and the bones to which they attach (muscle stress is what keeps bones strong), undergo continual alteration and renovation. They are both adaptive: they respond to lack of stress by weakening or atrophying, and to stress by becoming more robust. This occurs regardless of age. Those 80 year-old women I see lifting weights in the gym are doing a smart thing. Weights are good for females.
There is also growing evidence that regular intense physical exertion is good for maintaining mental functioning. It's definitely good for mental health.
As factories began to replace farms in economic importance, skeptics wondered whether old folks could understand and work with the new machines. One of the giants of American medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital co-founder William Osler, in 1905 decried the “uselessness” of men older than 60 and said they should leave the workforce.
Growing prosperity also meant more people could afford to stop working late in life...
The bottom line is that the black family was stronger the first 100 years after slavery than during what will be the second 100 years.
At one time, almost all black families were poor, regardless of whether one or both parents were present. Today roughly 30 percent of blacks are poor.
However, two-parent black families are rarely poor. Only 8 percent of black married-couple families live in poverty. Among black families in which both the husband and wife work full time, the poverty rate is under 5 percent. Poverty in black families headed by single women is 37 percent.
Should "Orthorexia Nervosa" be a diagnosis? No. We are already trying to label every human quirk, foolishness, and obsession as a medical diagnosis. Quirks are one thing that makes people interesting if not amusing. Many people ascribe magical properties to food. Some people think more about food, and some people just view it as fuel.
"Symbolic representation" sounds like a dull topic. Prof Peterson here is stunning as he takes on the organizing myths of human existence. Maps of meaning orient us to the world, and without them we encounter the dragons of chaos, confusion, and existential horror.
He connects psychology, myth, art, philosophy, politics, religion, good and evil, heroism, parenthood, and almost everything except the kitchen sink. The man is a Canadian national treasure.
"Any coherent organizing principle is better than none." Interpretive structures. I gave it a few listenings to fully appreciate this 2-hour talk.
Simple question: Are Asians part of white supremacy, or are Asians another minority oppressed by whites? (See Justice Harlan above.) And if they are an oppressed minority, shouldn’t Asians receive affirmative action preferences?
“When our elites attack our national symbols as if they are worthless and loathesome, something important, something monumental has changed here. If the people who benefited most from America despise it–and increasingly they do–where does that leave the rest of us?”
I can’t tell you how many times readers and potential/actual authors have told me they fear loss of job and career damage if they express non-liberal opinions at work or in a way that people at work could find out. There is a reign of terror ongoing in this country, but it’s not from the government, it’s from social-media-empowered leftists who seek to impose the most intrusive political litmus tests in every aspect of our lives.
The most revealing aspect of the culture war is not that the professional entertainment industries are uniformly and aggressively liberal, but that they have pushed politics into every aspect of our lives. You will be made to care in the classroom and now, on the sports field.
The result, for me, is a withdrawal from much of professional culture.
Now (Max) Weber was a very learned and intelligent scholar. After all, he gave us the true definition of government, namely, a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. It is a definition as full and accurate as it is sadistically useful for torturing our mild social democratic friends in Sweden or Massachusetts, who like to believe that the government is a festival of kindly collectivism, sort of like a loving family.
Does anybody want to join me? I am doing this beginning today, regardless of the rest of my exercise routine.
The idea is to do 100 daily, whether it's 1 or 5 or 10 or 20+ at a time. Just do 100 total with proper form (down low, back and legs like a plank and no dropping your butt). Obviously this is not for those fitter folks who can just get down and do 100 in a row without breaking a sweat. I'll begin with ten sets of ten and try to up the reps in each set each day with a goal of two sets of 50. Women can either do Pushups for women, or the basic version. Supposedly it can tighten gals' boobs, but don't ask me. I just do not want to develop Man-Boobs.
Men can not do Pushups for Women, of course. That would be shameful (although I confess I was forced to, recently. I can't do 50 man pushups in a row - yet).
100 is not a lot for 24 hours, and over time it gets more efficient, more at a time. Probably not a bad idea for those who never do pushups to begin with 30 for the first day, then 50 the next day, then 70, then 100.
Warning: The next Maggie's 30-day challenge in November will be similar, but for Burpees. We want to keep our readers alive. We need every one of our readers to keep getting the big bucks from Dunkin Donuts and Bob Dylan.
It is strange, but nobody pays money to watch athletes display their politics - whatever they are. I still don't know what all this is about other than another Trumpian circus. Pres. Trump is a hit new TV reality show with a crazy new theme each week for people to talk about. Meanwhile, behind the stage, his admin is doing lots of things.
Oppressed Multi-Millionaire Stevie Wonder Takes a Knee
With the publishing of her new book, seems only fair (and balanced) to take a look at excerpts from the 2014 Tax Return for the Clinton Foundation. These are public documents.
2014 Total revenue (line 12) $177,804,612
Total grants to charity (line 13) $5,160,385 (that's less than 3%)
Total expenses of $91,281,145 Expenses include: Salaries (line 15) $34,838,106 Fund raising fees (line 16a) $850,803 Other expenses (line 17) $50,431,851 Travel $8,000,000 Meetings $12,000,000
They list 486 employees (line 5) plus 400 volunteers (line 6)
"Fair Analysis: It took 486 (886?) people who are paid $34.8 million and $91.3 million in fees and expenses to give away $5.1 MILLION. Geez, wonder what all those folks wuz really doin?
Line 22 shows ending year net assets/fund balances of $332,471,349 which is up $85,171,891 from last year's tax return! (No substantial asset increase in 2015 when she was running.....hmmm)
- All these contributions were pure charitable donations?...it's another fair question that should leap to anyone's mind.
“Reunite what country?” Recall, Indo-China was not one country, or even three countries, under the French. It was administered as six regions (Laos, Cambodia, Tonkin, Annam, Cochin China and the Crown Dominion Lands). Vietnam was not one country before the French. In the previous millennium it was united for perhaps 30 years. Most of this unification refers to unifying the area north of the Red River with that of the area south of the Red River—all of that territory being within what became known as North Vietnam. It does not refer to the area from the border with China in the north to the tip of the Ca Mau peninsula in the south or west to the mountain border areas with Cambodia and Laos. That had never been one country. There was nothing to reunify. This is not analogous to the American Civil War. This was not a nation that was split by colonialism, by war or by agreement.
In a time when many people genuinely believe that government policy has the power to create nice weather, one considers whether god-like power and god-like benevolence is still ascribed to governments in a post-Enlightenment world.
The same fallacy is applied to health - and to economics. Why can't governments keep the economy nice?
The prospect that any feasible political corrective for market failure might also fail when compared against the ideal standard of efficiency was not examined.
It seems to be that political correctives are often critiqued by conservative economists, but the "something must be done or you don't care about ____" often wins the day in politics. This is part of why the only politicians I even half trust are those who did not seek a lifelong political career. I respect most those who do some service and then go back to the farm.
It's human nature, I suppose, to enjoy imagining that somebody or some thing can fix reality to make earthly life more like the paradise of our dreams. Worldwide, the powerful have sought to affiliate with gods, or to become gods in name, to exploit that human yearning.
And if only government had more money and power, it might work. Or not. At the least, it would help fulfill the dreams of those who seek power. Unlike wealth, power is a zero-sum game.
20:1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
20:2 After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.
20:3 When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace;
20:4 and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.
20:5 When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same.
20:6 And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?'
20:7 They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.'
20:8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.'
20:9 When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.
20:10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.
20:11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner,
20:12 saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'
20:13 But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
20:14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.
20:15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
20:16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
The Nurburgring race track can be treacherous. They have some days when, for a fee and an insurance waiver, it's open to the public to test drive their own cars. Also, you have to pay for any repair to the walls.
A good thing about it is, if anybody crashes, the followers stop to check up on them.
In response to several warnings, I responded to my browser and mail provider. It's been a 12 hour on and off conversation with some guys in Delhi. They seem to know exactly what they are doing, and are polite with perfectly-grammatical if accented English. I am fairly sure one of the guys learned English from a Scottish teacher.
The point is that I had a few hundred attacks on my computer over 48 hours, some foiled and some not. Some of these evil programs penetrated my email and my laptop. Of course, nobody cares about my info, but I do not like roaming intruder programs, worms and all that, messing with my machine. Russians?
So the guys in Delhi sold me on a fancy new firewall and got rid of a lot of stuff that CCleaner could not. My old firewall was obsolete, about 4 years old. As readers know, it is a bit creepy the way the techies can take over your machine and do whatever they need to do. I guess you just have to trust them.
Prof Peterson
Photo: You probably 
4 Ancient prayers