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.
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."
17 miles of beach with excellent Atlantic body-surfing surf - and nobody on the entire thing but Mrs. BD (in photo) and me. Tempted to try some nude surfing but would hate to sunburn sensitive body parts. (Also, with a good wave ride you can scrape the sand.)
We are not accustomed to swimming and surfing in 75-degree ocean water, as Cape Codders. In warm surf, I get tired before I become hypothermic. That's good, but the warmth feels decadent.
I will throw some pics together when I get the chance.
"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt."
"...the wind of opinion in recent years appears to have begun to blow against those who insist that Western liberal societies owe nothing to the religion from which they arose. Partly because the more we become acquainted with other traditions, the harder it becomes to sustain. Indeed, although some people still hold out, it should be evident by now that the culture of human rights has more to do with the creed preached by Moses and Jesus of Nazareth than that of, say, Muhammad. Nevertheless, the question of whether this societal position is sustainable without reference to the beliefs that gave it birth remains deeply pregnant and troubling in the West."
6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.
6:2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.
6:3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."
6:4 The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.
6:5 And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"
6:6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.
6:7 The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."
6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"
4 cans of Goya black beans (make sure they are GMO black beans, much better) 2 medium onion diced chopped garlic, as much as you like (not organic garlic, please) about 4 slices of bacon a couple of bay leaves some chicken broth thyme cumin and/or chili and/or cayenne pepper powder 1 fresh jalapeno pepper chopped (or jarred - doesn't matter) and/or chopped scallions
Cook the bacon. Remove it. Sautee the onion and garlic in the bacon grease a little. Chop up the bacon. Dump out most of the bacon grease, then dump in the beans (don't drain them), onions and garlic, bay leaf, chopped bacon, some chicken broth, salt, and a couple of dashes or so of the flavorings. (I hold the jalapeno in abeyance as not everybody likes it. Can be added as garnish when done)
I don't use cilantro because I hate it. Cilantro - some like it, some do not. It's genetic.
Simmer covered for an hour or so or toss it in a crock pot. Add more chicken broth it it's too thick. Then mash it in the pot with a potato masher. Some people just take half of it and run it thru the blender for a creamier result but I like to mash it. Scallions on top, +/- chopped jalapeno.
I like it with a big dollop of mashed taters in the middle of each person's bowl, but some people prefer sour cream and salsa on it. Whatever.
Mom used to send us kids out into the meadow edges in July and August with our blueberry cans on strings around our necks. Wild blueberries, the small ones. Now you can get blueberries year-round, but they are not the same. Big fat things mostly.
On an old shore, the vulgar ocean rolls Noiselessly, noiselessly, resembling a thin bird, That thinks of settling, yet never settles, on a nest.
The wings keep spreading and yet are never wings. The claws keep scratching on the shale, the shallow shale, The sounding shallow, until by water washed away.
The generations of the bird are all By water washed away. They follow after. They follow, follow, follow, in water washed away.
Without this bird that never settles, without Its generations that follow in their universe, The ocean, falling and falling on the hollow shore,
Would be a geography of the dead: not of that land To which they may have gone, but of the place in which They lived, in which they lacked a pervasive being,
In which no scholar, separately dwelling, Poured forth the fine fins, the gawky beaks, the personalia, Which, as a man feeling everything, were his.
The Law says that there always are some of those. People in business analyze them carefully, as do war-planners - in advance. Even so, many or most things do not work out as planned. When it comes to politicians and policy-makers, often-enough things that appear, in retrospect, as Unintended, were covertly intended.
Today’s political process tends to steer people away from thinking carefully about the many trade-offs in deciding public policy issues. This leads to a cycle of overreaction in which policymaking focuses on minimizing error in one direction, leading to worse errors in the opposite direction.
California drought 
Boyhood Under Attack: 
Mom used to send us kids out into the meadow edges in July and August with our blueberry cans on strings around our necks. Wild blueberries, the small ones. Now you can get blueberries year-round, but they are not the same. Big fat things mostly.
