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.
Last month, feminists in Cologne responded to the mass molestation by predominantly Muslim migrants that occurred on New Year’s Eve by visiting the city’s largest refugee center and handing out roses as a “gesture against xenophobia”. Another feminist group in Cologne responded to the attacks by denouncing “German born men”.
"Success in life" is one of those useless, maybe even insidious terms, like "happiness." Perhaps the rare independent thinkers among us rebel against such hollow terms and follow the beat of their own inner drummers, but most of us accept the default socio-cultural standards of whatever socio-cultural milieu we live in. Fish in water.
As one example, I gave up my delusions of grandeur in late adolescence as most people seem to do when the reality of our limits sinks in. Change the world and all of that. As far as I could tell, I had no rare talents, passions, or bold new ideas but I liked to work and to learn so I pursued the conventional bourgeois format of education, financial security, raising interesting kids, and becoming a member of the gentry like my parents and grandparents. Some comfort, some security, a warm home, lots of hobbies, interests, and friends. I bought into the conventions of my personal background. Is that "success"? Security and comforts seem like lame aspirations, lacking in adventure and risk, but what else can an ordinary person do?
Ah get born, keep warm Short pants, romance, learn to dance Get dressed, get blessed Try to be a success Please her, please him, buy gifts Don’t steal, don’t lift Twenty years of schoolin’ And they put you on the day shift Look out kid They keep it all hid Better jump down a manhole Light yourself a candle Don’t wear sandals Try to avoid the scandals Don’t wanna be a bum You better chew gum The pump don’t work ’Cause the vandals took the handles
In middle age, we reflect on these things. Have I used God's gifts as best I could have? Have I been as benevolent and constructive being as I could have? Sacrificial enough for my conscience? Did I make enough money? Will I leave behind me things and memories of charm and beauty if not a handful of inspiring ideas? Thus far, lived with integrity and to my standards of behavior? Make a lovely, rich- (not money-rich) enough life for my wife and kids? Helped enough people through life messes? Loved my neighbor as myself? Admittedly, these are socio-culturally-determined questions but I think they are typically-American.
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countries, more than half the world’s total, have suffered some loss in
freedom during the past 10 years. - See more at:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/01/the-end-of-history-in-reverse.html#sthash.OidaloMx.dpuf
Scientists should have known in 1980 that the recommendation to cut fat was unsound. Large clinical trials at the time did not support the theory, according to a systematic review published last year in the cardiology journal Open Heart. "It seem incomprehensible that dietary advice was introduced for 220 million Americans," the authors wrote, "given the contrary results."
The European elite’s reckless disregard for the very real limits on the Continent’s political and psychological ability to receive migrants, and the shortsightedness of arrogant policymakers who charged on without an understanding of public sentiment, is going to cost Europe—and migrants—dear.
The U.S. is also heading for this kind of reckoning: Immigration and refugee policy have become detached from public sentiment and the backlash is gathering force. In both the U.S. and the EU, there is a rising sentiment in public opinion that elites are deliberately and consciously taking steps that will change the demographic and cultural balance of the countries they oversee. This is the kind of soil in which poisonous plants grow well, and one can watch them growing on both sides of the Atlantic.
The European Union, which generates constant peace-and-love propaganda, is a complete and utter fraud. Nobody in the Eurocracy is actually elected by voters. European voters are completely helpless, and national parliaments are constantly yielding power to the appointed bureaucracy in Brussels. All EU propaganda consists of barefaced lies. This is a mass psychiatric problem -- self-delusion being the biggest sign of neurosis.
Discussions with Intelligence Community officials have revealed that Ms. Clinton’s “unclassified” emails included Holy Grail items of American espionage such as the true names of Central Intelligence Agency intelligence officers serving overseas under cover. Worse, some of those exposed are serving under non-official cover. NOCs (see this for an explanation of their important role in espionage) are the pointy end of the CIA spear and they are always at risk of exposure – which is what Ms. Clinton’s emails have done.
Actually, it does not usually put assets' lives at risk. The adversaries ID them, then use them to submit misinformation. It is beyond me how anybody could be so stupid and reckless. I do not even email any of my personal financial info - and I have a security system.
Rarely seen Stockman so relatively jocular, especially given this gloomy message about markets and the world economy. He likes cash and gold right now.
Good comments there. I think, for the average person, ownership is a forced saving and a mortgage tax deduction. However, home maintenance is a black hole. I guess it depends on your situation.
Race and immigration are two things, like sex and money used to be, that people are not allowed to talk about. Well, they can all go to hell. The EU is a dictatorship by unelected bureaucrats who wish to control our lives. Our elected representatives know this, yet are doing everything they can to perpetuate it. That’s what they should have been discussing in Davos.
Medical advances keep guys in their 70s and 80s on the ski slopes, the basketballs courts, the tennis courts - and at work. The concept of retirement is already obsolete. Obsolete to the point that, in America, men only reluctantly admit that they are retired today.
Our senior partner is 84, and at work every day. He is the Socrates of our firm and he lifts at the gym before work. Last year we voted him 6 wks paid vacation per year, in gratitude. But if he is on a big case, of course he can't and would not go anywhere. We have no retirement age, and offer no retirement benefits. However, we can, and do, vote partners out unless we love them.
Most guys over 65 are working at something, and want to be. Second careers, and third careers, are common today. Defined benefit pensions have disappeared outside of government employees and even there, for many, these are being replaced by IRAs. The short historical period of those 30-40 year retirements is gone outside of government union jobs. Unions still idealize not-working as if that were a wonderful thing. It seems not to be for most people.
It's not just about money, and it's not just men. Women too need to feel productive, contributive, active in the world. The alternative is to feel either dependent or useless.
Overall, it's a good thing. The wise old owls have much to offer the arrogant young bucks and buckettes. The late 1800s Bismarckian notion of a few years of leisurely rest before death is as obsolete as most of the Progressive ideas of the 1920s in the US (mostly borrowed from Bismarck if not from Marx). Mind you, neither Bismarck nor Marx ever held a real job, or could even hammer a nail.
For the "common good," I would set Social Security at 75, and means test it too based on assets and income.
Math educational fads come and go. While all the average Joe needs is practical math (even if that practical math is advanced calculus or statistics), very few have the IQ or interest to go deep into theoretical math. It's too abstract.
Few college applicants even have the IQ to master basic calc or stats, hence Math for Poets and Rocks for Jocks.
Like the New Math in the 1960s (Multiply 2X3 in Base 6 - what?), the math experts want the kids to dig into the mysterious depths of numbers. It will never happen.
Some varieties bloom in the snow, long before spring bulbs.
Here's how to take care of your Hellebores. Seems like a good idea to plant them in bunches. (In our view here at the farm, there are only two types of planting plans - massed - all of one species - and specimen plants. Random mixes are just a mess, we believe, most of the time. I violate the rule often)
I am going to get me some and see how they do.
(I wonder about the impact of online plant sellers on local nurseries and the old standard plant mail-order catalogues. Must be like the impact of Amazon on booksellers. Nurseries cannot compete with the online selections. Just look at Hosta Patch - 500 varieties of Hostas.)
I recently read somebody questioning how the "Greatest Generation" - meaning the WW 2 warriors, makers, and builders - could be so great if they spawned the ridiculous Boomers.
Balsamic Dreams:A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation by Joe Queenan.
How does it happen that so many people from one generation can end up with so much foolishness and self-absorption in common? Queenan is tough on his peers and on himself, mocking everything from the obsession with staying young and "eating healthy" to the fad for "tag team" funerals with the clergy as an accessory.
You will never touch "organic balsamic," a "heritage tomato" or a free range turkey again without a sense of your own absurdity.
Boomers will see themselves almost too clearly in this book. Laugh or cry? Your choice, but the book's mirror could cause a boomer to want to off himself due to self-disgust. The good part is that it offers one good laugh per page, the bad part is that it offers a horror of self-recognition on every page too.
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
13:2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
13:3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
13:6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
13:7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
13:8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
13:9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
13:10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Paul is not talking about romance (despite all of the stupid weddings that use this) - or about any ordinary things. Not a human relationship manual. He is preaching theologically about how Christ's light can shine through us if we let it, and lead us to worship God and Christ and be changed by that from a gong to something else, something more Christ-like and less human.
Yes, it is fine. Although it looks and can taste carby, it is not. It's a close relative of the tomato but more fibrous. Thus, like tomato and no many vegetables, basically carb-free and nutrition-free, but tasty and fun to eat.
It's a pretty good substitute for carbs, in fact. I like it grilled, sauteed in olive oil, or steamed or sauteed with tomato and summer squash. I can do without eggplant parmesan.
Doesn't it depend on what the meaning of love is? We all have standards and expectations for relationships. Somebody said that romance is chemistry but love is a decision.
Statistically, single motherhood is as dumb as dropping out of high school. There is no cure for stupid and, shockingly, outside Lake Wobegon a full half of Americans have below-average IQs.
4,500-Year-Old Boat Found Near Pyramids
Yes, it is fine. Although it looks and can taste carby, it is not. It's a close relative of the tomato but more fibrous. Thus, like tomato and no many vegetables, basically carb-free and nutrition-free, but tasty and fun to eat.
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