Sunday, December 20. 2015
It is always a fun topic. I view myself as middlebrow in taste and capacity for appreciation but with aspirations to fuller and deeper appreciation of the finer things.
There are 1000 things I'd rather do than to go to a NASCAR event. Call me a snob, but it is of no interest to me although I love to drive fast and have a string of tickets and an auto insurance bill to prove it. Bread and circuses for the people? Well, I want everybody to have whatever sort of fun they choose.
The death of High Culture has been announced forever, but I don't even know what it is. Is Picasso high culture? Is Puccini high culture? (Definitely not - too much fun). Is Bob Dylan lowbrow folk-rock? Is The Messiah pop schlock? (Many feel it is, but I love it). Joseph Epstein: Whatever Happened to High Culture? An inquest
In the end, I think that such distinctions are about how generally accessible creative endeavors are, and how much instruction and thought might be useful to engage with them. Reverence towards such things is silly though, I feel. The Mona Lisa? Give me a break but OK, he was an all-round genius and genius is rare and wonderful.
Refined tastes? I can get on board with that, to a degree. There are many things in mass culture and pop culture that offend my delicate sensibilities and which seem vulgar to me, but I let it go. To each, his own. Live and let live.
For my doctors, lawyers, colleagues, and other remote pals: Holiday Cheesecakes. Would send one to our Webmeister but do not have his new address. It's old-fashioned, but who does not love getting festive food treats in the mail?
For garbage guy, $50. For mailman, $50. Gotta thank those guys personally for their work. Sure, they get paid, but I mean personally.
Then comes my list of charities which I will not list other than a plug for Salvation Army. This year, I am giving to FIRE instead of to my schools. Much better educational use of my hard-earned dollars now and in the future. All of my alma maters have gone to the dark side, and they do not need my money anyway. They have billions in the bank.
McInnes amuses:
Christmas is about many things, but a big part of it is indulging yourself. I’m all for that. Be crass. Be an ugly American. Laugh with your mouth full. The men who built this country didn’t do it so we could feel bad about ourselves. They did it so we could all prosper. I’m done feeling bad about being the best. We rule, literally. You’re welcome.
Related: Colonial New Englanders did not celebrate Christmas. In fact, it was illegal to do so in Boston. However, down South in New Amsterdam they had no such Puritanical tendencies.
It is easy for us Yankees to forget that New York was already a substantial, rowdy town when those Pilgrims accidentally landed in cold, damp, and God-forsaken Cape Cod in November. Of course, the Catholic Spanish were in America first. The Brits chased out the Spanish and the Dutch, and then we Brits chased out the French, and then Britain itself for foolish reasons, but it worked out pretty well anyway despite our having, over time, created a far more oppressive and burdensome State than Britain could have dreamed of. A commercial powerhouse, however.
Related: The Gift of the WalMagi
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
1:39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,
1:40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
1:41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
1:42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
1:43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
1:44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
1:45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
1:46 And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord,
1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
1:49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
1:50 His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
1:51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
1:52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
1:54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
1:55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
Saturday, December 19. 2015
Democrat Leaders Dance, Gloat, Declare Speaker Paul Ryan ‘Gave Away The Store’
Thus Ryan's reward for civil cooperation and compromise.
 Christmas Party at the South Danbury Church
December twenty-first
we gather at the white Church festooned
red and green, the tree flashing
green-red lights beside the altar.
After the children of Sunday School
recite Scripture, sing songs,
and scrape out solos,
they retire to dress for the finale,
to perform the pageant
again: Mary and Joseph kneeling
cradleside, Three Kings,
shepherds and shepherdesses. Their garments
are bathrobes with mothholes,
cut down from the Church's ancestors.
Standing short and long,
they stare in all directions for mothers,
sisters and brothers,
giggling and waving in recognition,
and at the South Danbury
Church, a moment before Santa
arrives with her ho-hos
and bags of popcorn, in the half-dark
of whole silence, God
enters the world as a newborn again.
The nation's Poet Laureate, Donald Hall, is a native of New Haven and lives in Danbury, NH. He knows both death and baseball, and he has written a heck of a lot of things. More of his poems here.
Friday, December 18. 2015
You are probably aware that "gomer" is a technical medical term for an elderly human with too many chronic medical problems, usually including cognitive decline. The female term is "gomere."
It's an acronym for "Get Out of My Emergency Room." In the classic black-humor but realistic medical memoir of an internal medicine internship (House of God - which was Mass General I believe but sort-of named after NYC's Mount Sinai), the phrase "Gomers go to ground" was popularized.
The idea is that gomers always find a way to fall - while walking, falling off a gurney, falling out of bed, having mini-strokes or heart attacks, falling off the toilet, falling out of wheelchairs, etc. Victims of gravity and decay.
If you read the book you will never want to get near a famous teaching hospital. There is plenty of sex with nurses, chaplains, and social workers, etc in it, which is sort-of an intern ritual and the gals are all hot for fresh young interns. At Amazon:
The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative journey that takes us into the lives of Roy Basch and five of his fellow interns at the most renowned teaching hospital in the country. Young Dr. Basch and his irreverant confidant, known only as the Fat Man, will learn not only how to be fine doctors but, eventually, good human beings. Samuel Shem has done what few in American medicine have dared to do - create an unvarnished, unglorified, and amazingly forthright portrait revealing the depth of caring, pain, pathos, and tragedy felt by all who spend their lives treating patients and stand at the crossroads between science and humanity. With over two million copies sold worldwide, The House of God has been hailed as one of the most important medical novels of the twentieth century and compared to Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith for its poignant portrayal of the education of American doctors.
Thus I found it amusing to see this sign in La Gomera last month (I will post my pics of La Gomera and Tenerife when I get to it):
Correction: Reader is right I think. Boston's Beth Israel.
 From Seinfeld: Men\Women Jokes:
"I bet women would like to know what men are really thinking: The Truth, the honest Truth of what men are really thinking... Cause I could tell ya! Would you like to know?! Alright I'll tell you: NOTHING!! We're not thinking anything... We're just walking around, looking around... This is the only natural inclination of Man! We're just gonna check stuff out."
Pic: The Jeronimos Monastery, Belem, Portugal last month
Thursday, December 17. 2015
 As I have said, general fitness is about five things: Endurance/Stamina, Strength, Flexibility and Balance, Power (Power = Strength X Speed) and a trim, energetic physique. Most exercises have overlap - addressing some aspects of all of the above to varying degrees.
It's possible to have good endurance (eg a distance runner) with poorly-developed strength and power, or to have excellent strength (eg a body-builder) without power or endurance. Perhaps the sport which demands the ultimate balance of the categories is high-level Basketball, but we can argue that all day.
"Functional fitness", as opposed to fitness targeted to a specific use or a specific sport, is aimed towards those four or five goals in a balanced way. For average people like me determined to "get in shape," the limiting factor to developing in all areas is strength (- if it's not being fat). Decent - not extreme - muscle strength is the foundation of everything else.
For example, it even requires strength-development to do effective, intense cardio intervals. Plodding along for hours offers no cardio or other physical benefit at all unless you are 80 years old.
That's why an introductory program to get back in shape will entail devoting plenty of your time with difficult and painful resistance exercises for the upper body, lower body, and core (back and abs). As you approach your personal strength goals (which ought to be modest and realistic because you ain't Arnold), you can back off to a more efficient strength-maintenance mode and focus more time on the other fitness areas - applying and stressing some of that strength by using it in more functional exercise like heavy calisthenics. Of course, that includes sports, recreation, and physical work and not just gym work.
Then, to stay in good shape, you'll have to do some of that forever - or until you give up on physical fitness and vigor and retire to the olde rockin' chair or the La-Z-Boy to decay in comfort.
That's the basic theory for maintaining vigor.
As a middle-aged guy who had not exercised seriously for 20 years, I think it will have taken me a year before reaching half-decent overall strength (eg benching my weight, deading well over my weight, good barbell squats, doing some number of chin-ups). As we get older, strength is more difficult to increase and quicker to disappear when it's not used. A sad fact: In middle age, muscle strength and mass diminishes measurably within 2 weeks unless it is stressed.
It has been fun to learn about exercise physiology. Physiology is interesting it itself, I think. ATP, fast-twitch and slow-twitch, aerobic and anaerobic, glycogen and fat-burning, muscle micro-tears, etc. Our animal body is a miracle.
A few interesting fitness links I've seen lately:
7 Ways to Boost Your Endurance and Stamina
What's the Best Way to Build Endurance?
Strength vs Power
Strength and Power: What's the difference?
7 Exercises to Gain Explosive Power
and some tips and comments:
- Avoid having a workout routine. Even with cardio. Reason is, with routine your body gets too efficient to be properly challenged. So if you run one day, do stairs the next cardio day. Or if you do squats one time, do jumping squats the next time. If you do bench one week, do inclined bench next week. Keep surprising your body with different demands or you will plateau.
- Free weights. Free weights are better than machines because they engage all the accessory muscles. Many machines are just to help people get to the point where they can use free weights without injury.
- Once per week is enough for heavy resistance work for a given muscle group. That's why it's common for people to have one upper body day and one lower body day per week. Or, in my case now, one heavy Push day and one heavy Pull day.
- Drop Sets are cool. By the end, you can hardly pick up a pencil or take a step. You are broken, shredded. That's what makes you stronger.
- It's truly hard. Strength-building under supervision is remarkably difficult mentally and physically. It might be the most difficult thing I have ever done, and the only immediate gratification in it is when the hour is up. That's because, as soon as you can do something, your demands are increased. Progress is slow, measurable in months, not days. It is no wonder that gym memberships and attendance peak after the New Year and dwindle thereafter. Without self-discipline and the right diet, it's a pointless pursuit.
- Technique is key. It's easy to injure a muscle using poor weight technique. You have to be taught. It's not as simple as it looks. (Even jump rope has a proper technique.)
- Make noise. Gotta let yourself grunt and groan. It helps a lot. And let those farts rip during deadlifts. Everybody else does, including the gals.
- Lazy, unfit, and overweight is a rational choice. It must be, because people are not stupid. Worldwide, it seems to suit many or most people very well. It is limiting, though. As I struggle with my program, I grow more sympathetic with their choice.
 Camille Paglia assesses the parlous state of today’s feminism.
"The problem with too much current feminism, in my opinion, is that even when it strikes progressive poses, it emanates from an entitled, upper-middle-class point of view. It demands the intrusion and protection of paternalistic authority figures to project a hypothetical utopia that will be magically free from offence and hurt. Its rampant policing of thought and speech is completely reactionary, a gross betrayal of the radical principles of 1960s counterculture, which was inaugurated in the US by the incendiary Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley."
"When politicians try to tax corporations to death, the corporations are likely to take rational action"
A book: Klemen on Riebling, 'Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War against Hitler'
Ugly New Budget Deal Shows Why Americans Hate Washington
Was Marco Rubio Overrated All Along?
Trump’s Commanding Performance - Front-runner projects a kind of strength his opponents can't quite match
Congressman: Refusing Syrian Refugees Hurts National Security
No evidence California attackers were part of terrorist cell: FBI head
Pentagon's Move Against Bowe Bergdahl Was About Its Own Integrity
The military's real problem: Fewer Americans are joining
By keeping its distance from the escalating efforts to rid the region of Islamic State, Israel has strengthened its hand.
How Saddam’s men help Islamic State rule
Why Saudi Arabia's coalition against terrorists might not be all it appears
Women Suicide Bombers On The Rise Don’t Have Much Use For 72 Virgins. Here’s What They Get Instead
Obama's Middle East Delusions
Is Iran taking over Latin America?
Wednesday, December 16. 2015
What else is wrong with this policy idea? How a Family Allowance Could End Poverty
Of course giving people money ends poverty, technically. (In the US, poverty stats ignore the value government benefits. Poverty stats also ignore those with voluntarily low reported incomes: clergy, grad students, hippies, criminals, the early-retired, budding entrepreneurs, aspiring actors, etc etc).
People ought to make life choices designed to meet their goals. To put it another way, in the absence of mental illness or mental incapacity, we should respectfully assume that adults' choices are guided by their goals. In America, part of poverty is electing not to do the things that prevent poverty. The best way not to be poor is to be married before having kids. Statistically, single motherhood is the best path to poverty and dysfunctionality.
By religious tradition, Christmas Eve food is fish. That is called "fasting."
This is good: Baked Sea Scallops, Italian-style
Related, The Top Ten Most Famous Venetian Dishes. That's Italian.
Tuesday, December 15. 2015
Economist Bill Easterly on outside experts and their terrible effects. Never trust do-gooders.
Furthermore, "poor" is a Western concept imposed on people, conceptual imperialism. Material "poverty" is normal and not necessarily a terrible thing. Same goes for power and dictatorships and kingdoms. Individual Freedom and Material Prosperity are Western ideals, not universal ideals. Are Eskimos "poor"?
Spiritual poverty is not normal. Prof. Easterly seems like a very well-intentioned fellow, but Easterly is a cultural imperialist.
To begin to wrap up my photo travelogue, we sailed from Morocco out to the Canaries, about 60 miles west of Morocco. We visited Lanzerote, Gran Canaria, La Gomera, and Tenerife.
Have I mentioned that Mrs. BD has an affinity for islands?
A few Canary details: The name is from their Latin name - Dog Islands. Canary birds do live there. They sing like Canaries, but are not bright yellow. The islands are all volcanic. Some are dry and some get rain and have banana plantations. Americans rarely visit the Canaries which, from a tourist standpoint, function more like a Caribbean for northern Europeans. Beaches and booze for the Brits, Germans, and Scandinavians. We never went near a beach, though. The climate is subtropical - 70s year round with a sea breeze.
This is the volcanic soil of desert-like Lanzerote. Where it's not steep, they dig pits and plant wine grapes.
If you go below the fold, more pics including Columbus' house. The Canaries were a good stopping place for westbound Spanish galleons.
Continue reading "Autumn travel post, penultimate edition: Sailing around the Canary Islands"
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