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.
I really love college basketball, even when teams I don't like, or root for, play. The entire 2015 NCAA Tournament has been a classic from start to finish. Kentucky entered prohibitive favorites, but left in a classless heap (I am not a fan of Calipari or his methods). There were plenty of upsets, and even a Cinderella of sorts in Michigan State, which was a 7th seed making the Final Four (Tom Izzo never really coaches Cinderella teams, he is always ready to make a run).
But the final game last night was a masterpiece, with lead changes galore and a personnel chess match which eventually led to Duke's fifth championship banner.
The real story, though, was who got them there. Their stars carried them all season, but got in foul trouble. So a forgotten freshman steps up with the team facing a considerable deficit, and single-handedly changes the tide of the game.
His story, one of great expectations which were never really fulfilled on a team loaded with talent, is one we can all learn from. I shared it with my sons, pointing out that you never know when your chance to make a difference will arrive. But if you're not prepared to make that difference, if you've let your skills diminish, if you've stopped caring, then your chance will arrive and pass.
I reminded them of the Prodigal Son. His celebrated return wasn't about how great he was, but how he returned to the fold. The personal recognition of his fall from grace and the need to redeem himself, returning to his father. Grayson Allen may not be the prototypical prodigal that leaps to mind. But all talented people, that is everyone, suffer down moments. What defines them isn't how they got down, but how they are able to pick themselves up and keep moving and make the most of what they have. Allen did that.
Life is easy when you're hot. But what happens when the ball bounces the other way? You just keep getting back up and climbing up.~Bill Walton
Dear Museums: Stop Making Nonsense - It's time for museums to desist with the silly spectacles and get back to the good work they could be doing in the civic sphere.
America needs out of the Muslim world. Whether or not it is a good idea to turn things over to the Persians remains to be seen, but history is on their side. They have been the dominant people in the region for 5,000 years, give or take.
There are hundreds of elitist, WASPy, old private communities like this scattered around the Northeast. Many operate as, or like, private clubs and some are more informal. I know about a lot of them, but have not been to many of them. They tend to be so discreet that you would not know about them.
Blooming Grove is great with thousands of acres, several streams and lakes and great old houses, but you have to be related to one of the founders to have a house there.
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles See the primitive wallflower freeze When the jelly-faced women all sneeze Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze I can’t find my knees” Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel
Michael O'Hare has plenty of complaints about art museums in Museums Can Change—Will They? Our great art institutions are cheating us of our artistic patrimony every day, and if they wanted to, they could stop.
Some of his gripes are reasonable, but some are not. Here are some of my points:
Museums are not just show places. They are safe repositories. Their stored things are used for sharing with other museums, for special exhibitions, study, etc.
Can looking at pictures be brain-deadening? Sure. I call it "museum brain." My limit is one hour, to see some things targeted in advance. It's overstimulating.
Are museums sort-of deadly environments? Yes. They are designed to highlight precious stuff in a sterile, non-distracting environment where everybody has access. Access is a good thing. However, little or nothing that one sees at the Met or at the Kunsthistorisches Museum was made for museum viewing. It was all made for a function, or for decor, in non-museum places - public or private. For entertainment, really, whether in church or in secular. Treating pictures as sacred relics in a Church of Art distorts the thing. When you see a single Picasso oil in somebody's living room, it's a different experience and you see it for what it is - totally cool and interesting decor mostly.
Related to that, the most comfortable museum I've used is the Belvedere. It is one of the first public art musems in the world. Everything is just hung or placed in the old Hapsburg palace as if it belonged there. Give it a try. The Frick is a bit like that too. It was somebody's house and people can still throw parties, weddings, etc. there with the Fragonards doing what they were meant to do - produce delight.
and a free ad for Christianity too. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed. This was not composed as church music, but as pop music. And it remains so. Catchy as heck.
It is part of the mystery of God that he acts so gently, that he gradually builds up his history within the great history of mankind; that he becomes man and so can be overlooked by his contemporaries and by the powers that shape history; that he suffers and dies and that, having risen again, he chooses to come to mankind only through the faith of the disciples to whom he reveals himself; that he continues to knock gently on the doors of our hearts and slowly opens out eyes if we open our doors to him.
It's that gentle knock that can eventually get you out of the chair or sofa, and open the door.
That painting hangs in St. Paul's in London. I was surprised to see it there.
27:57 When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus.
27:58 He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.
27:59 So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth
27:60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He
then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.
27:61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
27:62 The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate
27:63 and said, "Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, 'After three days I will rise again.'
27:64 Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day;
otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people,
'He has been raised from the dead,' and the last deception would be
worse than the first."
27:65 Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can."
27:66 So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.
This is a Jewish praise song honoring the prophet Elijah. The words are in Hebrew. Yes, there is saz but also persian ney and an Arabic freestyle by Said Tarabiye. Many of Diwan Saz' pieces are based on Turkish folk songs and they honor the musical traditions of Turkey, Kurds, Azerbaijanis, Persians, Jews, and many others.
Strange to Western ears, but these guys keep a Western rhythm.
For Passover, a friend sent along his reminiscences of growing up Jewish:
Brisket is not the same as Corned Beef!
This goes back 2 generations, 3 if you are over 50. It also explains why many Jewish men died in their early 60′s with a non-functional cardiovascular system and looked like today’s men at 89.
Before we start, there are some variations in ingredients because of the various types of Jewish taste (Polack, Litvack, Deutch and Gallicianer). Sephardic is for another time.
Just as we Jews have six seasons of the year (winter, spring, summer, autumn, the slack season, and the busy season), we all focus on a main ingredient which, unfortunately and undeservedly, has disappeared from our diet. I’m talking, of course, about SCHMALTZ (chicken fat).
SCHMALTZ has, for centuries, been the prime ingredient in almost every Jewish dish, and I feel it’s time to revive it to its rightful place in our homes. (I have plans to distribute it in a green glass Gucci bottle with a label clearly saying: “low fat, no cholesterol, Newman’s Choice, extra virgin SCHMALTZ.” (It can’t miss!) Then there are grebenes – pieces of chicken skin, deep fried in SCHMALTZ, onions and salt until crispy brown (Jewish bacon). This makes a great appetizer for the next cardiologist’s convention.
There’s also a nice chicken fricassee (stew) using the heart, gorgle (neck) pipick (gizzard – a great delicacy, given to the favorite child), a fleegle (wing) or two, some ayelech (little premature eggs) and other various chicken innards, in a broth of SCHMALTZ, water, paprika, etc. We also have knishes (filled dough) and the eternal question, “Will that be liver, beef or potatoes, or all three?”
Other time-tested favorites are kishkeh, and its poor cousin, helzel (chicken or goose neck). Kishkeh is the gut of the cow, bought by the foot at the Kosher butcher. It is turned inside out, scalded and scraped. One end is sewn up and a mixture of flour, SCHMALTZ, onions, eggs, salt, pepper, etc., is spooned into the open end and squished down until it is full. The other end is sewn and the whole thing is boiled. Often, after boiling, it is browned in the oven so the skin becomes crispy. Yummy!
My personal all-time favorite is watching my Zaida (grandpa) munch on boiled chicken feet.
For our next course we always had chicken soup with pieces of yellow-white, rubbery chicken skin floating in a greasy sea of lokshen (noodles), farfel (broken bits of matzah), tzibbeles (onions), mondlech (soup nuts), kneidlach (dumplings), kasha (groats), kliskelech and marech (marrow bones) . The main course, as I recall, was either boiled chicken, flanken, kackletten, hockfleish (chopped meat), and sometimes rib steaks, which were served either well done, burned or cremated. Occasionally we had barbecued liver done to a burned and hardened perfection in our own coal furnace.
Since we couldn’t have milk with our meat meals, beverages consisted of cheap soda (Kik, Dominion Dry, seltzer in the spritz bottles). In Philadelphia it was usually Franks Black Cherry Wishniak (vishnik).
The European Union serves three main functions. It gives the French the illusion of power, the Germans a possibility of being something other than German and the political class of all European countries the hope of eternal life, or at least of power beyond the normal natural life of a democratic politician. It is a giant pension fund for European politicians.
Gosh, I love this crazy city, but sometimes I like to get away from it for a little serenity. Then I get bored, and need to get back. As a country boy, you just need all that stimulation and hustle-bustle.
From my reading, it seems that New Amsterdam was more foundational to America than Plymouth ever was. And New Amsterdam was there first, as a speculative project of the Dutch West Indies Company. It was a wild and crazy multicultural tolerant, commercial place in 1623 and they mostly got along with the Indians. It is often omitted from the history that this is where the Pilgrims were headed.
There are three problems with rewarding those who use accusations of bigotry as a political cudgel. First, those who seek to protect religious liberties are not bigots, and going along with false accusations that they are makes one a party to a lie. Second, it is an excellent way to lose political contests, since there is almost nothing — up to and including requiring algebra classes — that the Left will not denounce as bigotry. Third, and related, it rewards and encourages those who cynically deploy accusations of bigotry for their own political ends.
The Maggie's Farm Woman of the Decade,
Easter 
I love deviled eggs. An egg salad sandwich is good too, with some celery in it, lots of pepper, on white bread.
Matthew 27:57-66
For Passover, a friend sent along his reminiscences of growing up Jewish:
Airbnb
Where