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.
Busted pipe, flooded basement last May. We have three 1/2 rooms down there: a bedroom with good windows and bath, a pantry, and two storage rooms (one for tools and hunting and boating stuff, and one for general saved stuff). Mostly finished rooms. Allstate sent their teams over for a couple of months and it's all better than it was before. We never had to lift a finger. Now we have a water-warning system. Thanks, Allstate.
The new pantry (minus the old second fridge which had to be cut up to get out of there. Can't live without a Sawzall.):
Neoteny refers to the persistence of juvenile traits, or the retardation of development. For example, it has been speculated that the domestic dog was bred (genetically engineered, as it were) as a neotenous wolf - one whose brain never matures and retains a puppy-like, submissive and thus a trainable, pliable, and friendly mentality. (All domesticated dogs were bred from the wolf, from the Chihuahua to the Huskie.)
Similarly, Stephen Jay Gould speculated that humans may be neotenous chimpanzees. On a bad day, I am quite certain that I am one. Desmond Morris wrote about it.
In fact, the human brain, face, and body demonstrate numerous neotenous traits, the lack of heavy body hair being the most obvious.
The grey matter of the human brain, in particular, shows retarded development even when compared with other apes and primates. Gene Expressions shows the data. (The transcriptome which is referred to is the messenger RNA (mRNA) which, in a timed manner, transcribes the messages from the DNA to make things happen. It's a miracle that it works.)
It is fun to speculate about what the neoteny of the human brain might imply for human development, socialization, learning, and psychology - but it's all speculation. As I have said, the human brain is an ongoing experiment.
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
There are many sorts of depression. Some are mostly situational (eg loss or failure), some are mostly chemical (eg Bipolar Depression), some are mostly psychological (eg a big blow to a fragile ego, or self-contempt either deserved or undeserved), etc, etc. Many or most, it seems to me, are mixtures.
In my view, most people with a depression need some sort of psychological intervention or help, and many benefit from medicine unless the medicine completely sweeps things under the rug that ought to be addressed. Depression is a non-specific phenomenon, like pain. It is, in fact, mental pain. Sometimes, mental agony.
Interesting article about Ketamine ("Special K" as it is sold in nightclubs). If it's one more tool in the toolkit, great.
A lot is packed into this seemingly simple blues song. 1964. I can tell you what it's about, but not now. You can start with the image of a mail train if you know what they looked like. When Bob was young, they were around in Duluth if not in Hibbing.
Never look for good character in politicians. They indeed are our inferiors in most cases. The Citizen is King. Mrs. BD makes a distinction between 2 sorts of Presidential Sins. A Venial Presidential Sin is hitting too hard on females. Mortal Presidential Sins are lying to investigators, secret emails, uranium to Russia, creating instability in the world, etc.
The old Hospital of St. Katherine Brewery, with a delightful beergarden on the bank of the Danube in pleasant Regensburg. Like many beer joints in Bavaria, they make their brews on premises and throw out the unused after one week.
Regensburg, interestingly, marked the northermost outpost of the Roman Empire. Augustus visited there, and I hope he had some brew.
You stroll over the c. 1100 stone bridge to get to the Spital brewery and beer garden. The lad and I went over the bridge a couple of years ago and hoisted a couple of their fresh brews. I never should have had their Bock, delicious as it was. The steins are large, of course.
We recommend that town for classic German food and drink, many medieval remnants, and some old Roman walls and stuff. Not a touristy town like Salzburg, just a fine small Bavarian city where you can walk everywhere.
Why this post? Cuz I was drinking my protein shake out of a Spital stein I picked up there. Yes, I paid a euro or two for it, as a souvenir. It says SPITAL...Regensburg...Seit 1225. That's an old brewery.
Of course they are. They might be bad literature, but lyrics are lyrics, and lyrics are poetry. Probably music lyrics came first, though, like chants with drumming or something. The Iliad was music lyrics, or at least a story set to music. The Psalms are songs for which the music has been lost. "Psalm" = Song.
Yes, the press collusion is the biggest story of this election cycle. Article is sickening. Meanwhile decades ago, Donald Trump was nuts about pretty girls...
The Standard Poodle was bred in Germany in the 1600s as the Pudelhund for duck and upland hunting. They are retrievers, and some lines (such as mine) are pointers also.
Later, the French adopted them and turned them into status symbols with crazy haircuts. They bred them for style and ignored the hunt aspect. Several poodle breeders have been breeding the hunting and retrieving talent back into poodle lines. Our breeder does that.
In 1942, the Poodle was one of 32 breeds officially classified as war dogs by the Army.
Poodles are smarter than humans.
Poodles have hair, not fur (which is why they are hypoallergenic and why they need haircuts). They love to swim, but do not enjoy being cold and wet at the same time. No insulation.
Pic is a Red (aka Apricot) Standard Poodle with a "Pet Cut," aka "Puppy Cut." That's the haircut I like in a poodle. With that cut, they are the cuddliest pups in the world. We give ours a full-body crew cut for summertime.
The Prof is hopelessly naive about human nature. In looking at human behavior, one must always be alert to the aggression and power-seeking. There is no sensitivity or hypersensitivity in these kids. They are manipulative bullies, "crybullies" as they are called. It has been stunning for me to watch real educated adults take these infantile tactics seriously or to be intimidated by them
Or perhaps they don't take them seriously, but are happy to find an excuse to do what they themselves wanted to do anyway. In any event, there is no innocence in the PC circus.
My response to that is that, if infantile or regressive behavior is rewarded, you will get more of it. That is regardless of age. If adult behavior is rewarded, you will get more of that. And as the man said, higher ed is not day-care.
Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self requires strength; He who knows he has enough is rich. Perseverance is a sign of will power. He who stays where he is endures. To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.
Phizzicle phitness consists of strength, endurance, and athleticism (plus body composition). A balanced fitness program will address all aspects.
Ordinary guys often tend to emphasize the strength component because it seems more rewarding, but if you have bulging biceps to impress the girls at the beach but can not sprint a mile or a half-mile, what good are you? Fact is, biceps are not very important in functional fitness. Triceps? More useful.
Ordinary gals tend to emphasize the cardio aspect but that is just as unbalanced. That's why we always say Weights + Cardio + Calisthenics (with sports counting as calisthenics unless it is TV football).
Today, more fun info re strength-building (for men and women).
- You can gain strength without dramatic growth in visible muscle size.
- An adult body can not grow new skeletal muscle cells. However, muscle cells can develop new and larger muscle fibers within the cells you were born with.
-Usable strength can only be increased by pushing, pulling, and carrying progressively heavy resistances (eg weights). Cardio and calisthenics do not generally build strength. Running one mile vs. 10 miles is not strength - it's endurance. Distance runners are often not very strong or powerful.
- Steroids work remarkably well to increase strength and size. Do not use them - go natural.
- After an initial phase of neuromuscular adaptation, strength improvement is discouragingly slow. Few good things come easily.
- Strength, endurance, and athleticism are rapidly lost without use. The older you are, the faster they disappear. Fitness is like money: Hard to get, easy to lose.
- Serious strength-building programs require a diet high in protein and fats, plus adequate carbs unless overweight. A good dose of protein immediately after a painful work-out is recommended.
- Strength building is a mind-body challenge. Very difficult and unpleasant unless you love pain and extreme effort. Most people prefer comfort - just look around at people. It's more fun with a trainer or a group so there is a relational aspect to it.
For strength-building for men and women, we recommend working one's way up over months or years to being able to condense a program down to multi-muscle exercises like bench press, deadlift, barbell squat, pull-up, rows, military press/inclined bench press. Together, those will stress pretty much every functional muscle group. That is my goal - a simple, basic, efficient strength regimen.
Nikil Saval at the NYT thinks it is. Like, I think, most people, I find it dehumanizing, cold, ugly, and intimidating just as its nickname implies. It says to me "You are entering Franz Kafka's nightmare."
That old Whitney Museum in NYC is just as hideous under its new name. It is unpleasant inside, too. I just figure that Bauhaus wasn't ugly or inhuman enough, so, to make a name for themselves, architects had to take ugly to its endpoint.
Philipp Meyer grew up in a working class neighborhood in Baltimore, where he dropped out of high school and got a GED. After five years working as a bike mechanic and an orderly in a trauma center, he decided to attend college, getting into Cornell University at the age of 22. He graduated with a degree in English and he got a job on Wall Street as a derivatives trader. After paying off his student loans, he left Wall Street hoping write full time, but after several years of failure moved back to Baltimore and took jobs as an EMT and construction worker. In 2005 he received a fellowship from the University of Texas’s Michener Center for Writers. In 2009 he published his first novel American Rust, which won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was an Economist Book of the Year, a New York Times Notable Book, a Washington Post Book of the Year, and made numerous other “best-of” list. Meyer is a Guggenheim Fellow and one of the second generation of the New Yorker’s 20 best writers under 40. His second novel, The Son, is being published in fifteen languages. He lives mostly in Austin, Texas.
Google Analytics tells us that Maggie's Farm gets around 330,000 page views per month, and has around 45,000 regular readers (comparable to subscribers, with the others more like newsstand buyers). About 25% of our visitors are new visitors, which I think is good. Some will return. We do not count "hits" on the site anymore. Last I saw, hits ran into the millions, but I do not think that meant much.
The metrics are pretty solid for a boutique, middlebrow, eclectic, redneck, hobby website. For many reasons (including not being clever enough, and not having enough original material), we'll never be able to compete with the big dogs. It has to be good enough for us that some of the big dogs check in with us regularly.
By space, we have around 25-30% political material but since everything is politicized these days including Zumba workouts and reading Shakespeare, maybe it all is. Regardless, I wish we had more Lefty David Brooks types checking us out if only to see what the great unwashed might be thinking about. Actually, though, I am well-washed today and well-dressed too, having taken a long extremely hot shower after my deadlifts and pull-ups this morning.
I also wish we had more international readers. We have a share, but I thought we'd have more who are interested in some views of Yankee life.
Anyway, send our site around to people who might be interested. Our readership is our only reward.
Harvard’s New Diversity Veto:
There are 
A few poodle facts:
Phizzicle phitness consists of strength, endurance, and athleticism (plus body composition). A balanced fitness program will address all aspects. 
The next ‘oppression’ threat: Zumba classes