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.
How to make Moroccan/Turkish/Greek/Arabian coffee. Delicious stuff even without any spices - just sugar. I prefer it to espresso. You need a dallah or ibrik or whatever it's called to make it properly. Alas, not available at Dunkin or Starbucks. Why not?
A machine can not make it. I think it could become more popular, for sure, than the crappy, watery espresso one is typically served in the US.
In the US, the Federal state is The Borg, gobbling up the rights and responsibilities of state and local government. At the dawn of the First World War, it was possible for an American to have no interaction with the national government, outside of the Post Office. His government was the town, village or city. Even his state government was alien to him. Today, it is impossible to live as an American without rubbing against the rasp of national government.
He was dealing with unassimilated (but more historically-accurate, de-assimilated) people who mostly did not want to be there. So why were they there at all? Such stories are heart-breaking. I do blame the emergence of this urban subculture on LBJ, a racist at heart who figured that urban blacks could never succeed in civil life in any numbers, and so needed to be given money to vote and to shut up.
I sometimes wonder what I would be like had I been sent to a school like that. I doubt that I would be skiing in Vermont with a bunch of friends on the MLK long weekend.
That was a public school. Charter schools can be wonderful, but only with parental (ie maternal mostly) support. These kids are screwed - by their "parents" and not by any "system." It's hopeless, so give them free money to live on. And guess what? It's not just urban black people. It can be rural white people too. There is a bell curve in human nature. I just feel for the ones who have aspirations, talent, and abilities but are crushed by their destructive subcultures of dependency and sociopathy.
Obama had a great chance to change this game for all colors of skin, but never did. Politics.
Well, the math of music is fascinating but I suspect that composers hear the music in their heads before they write it down, just as writers do with words. Being, sad to say, tone-deaf and a musical no-talent, I can not assert that with any confidence.
There is a sort of closure when a missing person is found dead or alive. There is closure any time a question mark is resolved with a fact.
However, there is no closure to grief. Major losses leave a hole in the soul. The sediments of time layer evenly over everything, but the depression in the ground remains for your lifetime. WSJ (paywall, alas): Closure Really Is a Myth, A Stumbling Block to Grief - I know both professionally and from my own experience that the term “closure” isn’t only a myth, it’s an illusion that is counterproductive.
It has always seemed quite simple to me: Socialist schemes require governmental force while free markets permit people to do what people naturally do of their own accord- trade things they make, or trade their work, to get whatever they want. Freedom can not exist without property rights.
Of course, there are no truly free-market nations, so it is all relative.
For an excellent summary of the inspirations of the socialist, "idealistic," totalitarian-minded youth, The Leftist Intellectuals Hovering over the Campuses. Short version: They want my stuff, by force if necessary. Take my freedom, my autonomy, my stuff - and then what? Shoot me as a bourgeois, hang me as a kulak - and then what happens?
These are not your grandfather's Marxists'. These are not the deadly, self-sacrificing, true believers of Lenin's time. Joe Biden is not Leon Trotsky, Hillary Clinton is not Rosa Luxemburg. Time has taken its toll on their movement. It has evolved into a stinking mélange of government corruption and crony capitalism and self-interest. Their hatred of traditional America is unabated but they are old and soft and have not had a new idea in fifty years. Their entire political base is on the take and is bought and paid for with our money. Tenured, overweight, overaged, academic leftovers from the 60's and 70's. Taxpayer funded race hustlers, the professional grievance industry, and all the other assorted thugs, criminals and perverts we see on TV every night. The beer drinkers and pot smokers sitting home living on your back. The young inmates of our university system, a bunch of overeducated, overindulged, overprotected, overmedicated punks who will vanish like the morning fog at the first drop of sweat or first pang of fear. Self-aggrandizing celebrity and media air heads who equate a tight ass with intellect.
Trump is not tapping into anger. He’s tapping into the sensibility of the great majority. The people look up and see an endless parade of frivolous parasites who defend nothing but their own prerogatives at the expense of everyone else. What’s the point of voting for one party or the other when both sides are colluding against your interests? Why do we have these parties?
The GOP electorate doesn’t trust the establishment on spending. It doesn’t trust it on immigration. It doesn’t trust it on, well, much of anything. And Jeb is the face of that establishment.
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand; Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
“Nations, as individuals, who are completely innocent in their own esteem, are insufferable in their human contacts.” Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were sinless, cognitively innocent and morally innocent. But after the Fall, with moral innocence shattered, this other innocence turns into a mode of obtuseness. It is sin-blind and self-unaware. It will not and cannot see itself addressed when Jesus looks upon sinners and says with authority, “go and sin no more.”
The original breakfast roll-up. McDonalds makes breakfast roll-ups, but they are not very good.
I like roll-up "sandwiches" for lunch of supper Especially with apple butter, turkey, mayo, tomato, lettuce. If I were a breakfast-eater, I'd try a jianbing any time.
Frankly, it isn't. We have been conditioned from birth to believe compromise is somehow 'good'. Even as I write this, I feel bad thinking that compromise isn't a welcome path for me anymore in my political views. Is it age? No, because this is a question I asked long ago in college while studying political science. Some friends would say I never compromised, forgetting my path to Libertarianism required years of questioning, change, and compromise. Even now, I am willing to compromise. Between the anarchist wing of Liberatarianism and the minarchist wing of the Republican Party. I fail to see much value in discussing policy with Democrats. They've spent too much time saying "You have nothing to offer." Well, actually there is a tremendous amount which has been offered, you've simply refused to look at the datasets that support our views. For you, it's always been "I want what I want, or at least compromise so I get a little of what I want while you get nothing."
For years, I've been taught that 'win-win' solutions are the best. They certainly are, and I try to find them whenever possible. But in this vein, how is compromise necessarily 'win-win'? It can be, certainly, but it is not always and definitely. In my day-to-day life, 'win-win' is what I live for. It's what keeps business running. But it is no longer useful in politics.
My friends who are Democrats bemoan the Republican stance saying "How can they block Obama at every turn? Why can't they compromise?" I don't doubt their sincerity of motive, their desire for what's best. I know they want to do well and good for themselves, others, and the nation. All they hear are flowery stories of 'curing cancer' or 'feeding the poor' and decide "Hey! That's a great idea, and politicians say we can do it by taxing the rich."
Great.
But I prefer shrinking the government. So do many people in this nation. When a Democrat says "I want to grow government infinity, and you don't, so let's compromise and only grow it 10%" I immediately start to get angry. Only growing it a little less than you want still constitutes growing it, and I am opposed to growing it. Where do we compromise?
We used to. We shouldn't anymore. It's time to say no. It's time to push back and take back. Which is why I don't particularly like the methods used in Oregon, but I support them. After all, Eric Holder took part in an armed takeover while at Columbia. How was his 'good' and theirs 'bad'?
The only compromise from here on in, as far as I'm concerned, is to agree to grow a Democratic program while cutting a larger one somewhere else - or not agree to growth at all. It's time for these people to choose what's important, and not throw shit on a wall to see what sticks. Nearly every article in the mainstream is heralding the idea that Joe Biden is going to cure cancer. This is, without question, one of the most laughably stupid concepts I've heard from anyone, anywhere, anytime. 'Cancer' isn't one single disease that a silver bullet cure can be created for, and chasing all the cures needed is absurdly expensive and outlandish regardless of what the mainstream journalists say.
Let's allow "Diamond" Joe Biden a return to pushing his copper business and let's start shrinking government by saying "No" to compromise that always has growth of government at its core.
Spending a few days at meetings in midtown Manhattan. Readers know that this ol' country boy does love NYC for a regular dose of the Big Time.
Details: Park Ave. Note the line for Grizzly's food truck on the left. Smells great. Flags are St. Barnabas. Next, on left, Waldorf-Astoria (now owned by the Chinese). Other buildings are mostly banks. All day and all night, streets filled with people bundled against the cold, cars zooming, limos waiting. Vitality. Attractive, put-together people. Great fun just to amble around and check things out.
Myron Magnet summarizes the history of the decay of the US Constitution. Even the founders thought that might be inevitable, given their wisdom about human nature, but they did their best to provide roadblocks. Securing the blessings of liberty (from government, of course) and securing defense from exterior powers...
There is always the excuse of a reason: Security, or To Do Good.
... we had better understand just what happened. There’s no single villain. As these books show, all branches of government conspired over more than a century to turn the Constitution that the Framers wrote in 1787, plus the Bill of Rights that James Madison shepherded through the first Congress in 1789 and the Fourteenth Amendment ratified in 1868, into something their authors would neither recognize nor endorse.
Larry Summers on
A day to remember MLK. An American hero. Not a day off work for most people, though.
Titanosaur, Museum's Biggest Dinosaur Ever,
The original breakfast roll-up. McDonalds makes breakfast roll-ups, but they are not very good.