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.
Fielding’s older brother, the novelist Henry Fielding, had already, in “Joseph Andrews” (1742), explained “those little Spaces between our Chapters” as “an Inn or Resting-Place, where he may stop and take a Glass, or any other Refreshment, as it pleases him.” Chapter titles, Fielding proceeded to explain, were like the inscriptions over the doors of those inns, advertising the accommodations within.
23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
23:2 "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat;
23:3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.
23:4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.
23:5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.
23:6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues,
23:7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.
23:8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.
23:9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven.
23:10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.
23:11 The greatest among you will be your servant.
23:12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
As someone who is relatively young in business but now occasionally asked to interview possible new hires, I have developed a list of general information questions which I like to use. Math, history, religion, scope of reading, current events, art, etc. After all, unless somebody is a genius in our field, you really want to hire people you want to be around and to work with, and secondarily people who you think can help make money because they are young and that can be hard to predict.
If they don't help you make money you can just let them go, but they at least have been good company for a while.
Some people love horror tales and frightening, high-suspense movies, while some cannot tolerate them.
Every person has his own zone in which fearful things are exciting and interesting.
The scariest costume this Halloween would be to wear an ebola costume.The Psychology of Irrational Fear - Why we're more afraid of sharks than car accidents, and of Ebola than flu
The crucial question: Do we have more to fear from largely imaginary terrorists, or from the FBI? Your chances of being killed by terrorists are essentially zero, even if you live in Washington or New York, and far less if you live in Memphis or Raleigh-Durham. (To express this we need the concept of negative zero, which I hearwith offer to the mathmatical community.) Your chances of living in an electronically locked-down police state are very high. This is far more dangerous to what the United States was than even a successful bombing of a mall.What goes through the minds of those who are doing this to us? In my former guise as a police reporter I knew a few FBI types. They were pathologically normal, smelled of too much soap and wholesomeness, resembled armed accountants with the other-worldly assurance of scientologists. They were deeply convinced that they were the Angels Gabriel protecting us from whatever, including ourselves—and they were as intellectual as colonels, which is to say as intellectual as fire plugs. In particular, they did not think in terms of constitutional liberties. Since their intentions were good, they figured that nobody should interfere with them. And they were on a power trip, as we used to say.
Critics have tagged the Common Core with the pejorative "ObamaCore." The gibe is more instructive than many realize. The Affordable Care Act and the Common Core both involve ambitious efforts to change whole swaths of American life, though the practical impact of each was intentionally shrouded in uncertainty. Both would have benefited from more scrutiny early on but are now increasingly entrenched. In health care, critics have found it a losing strategy to talk about simply repealing the ACA without talking about what should replace it. They need to offer plausible alternatives to have a shot at policy or political success. Meanwhile, the ACA has started to change American medicine. The same is true of the Common Core. Five years on, it has started to change instruction, textbooks, and curriculum.
Because it’s so easy to judge the idiocy of others, it may be sorely tempting to think this doesn’t apply to you. But the problem of unrecognized ignorance is one that visits us all. And over the years, I’ve become convinced of one key, overarching fact about the ignorant mind. One should not think of it as uninformed. Rather, one should think of it as misinformed.
You think you cannot appreciate art music. Well, you have not been properly introduced. Pop music needs little introduction but art music does because we do not automatically know our way around it. You know your way around a Lacrosse field (and so do I - played it like a redskin, lost a tooth).
This is an excellent intro, much better than I got in college: The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works. Readers know how much we love Bob Greenberg. My Mom loved him too. Buy it, or ask me to lend you my copy (which is actually on loan from a friend with whom we exchange Great Courses).
The Great Courses is one of the most life-enriching things we know of. We generally do one session of some course every evening.
Governments try to control what kids eat, and they'd like to control what you consume also.
However, government planning rarely can do anything right not only because central planning can never work but because government is plain dumb.
Dietary fats do not cause vascular disease, and dietary fats do not make you fat. From The Last Anti-Fat Crusaders - The low-fat-diet regimen is turning out to be based on bad science, but the USDA has been slow to catch on:
The most current and rigorous science on saturated fat is moving in the opposite direction from the USDA committee. A landmark meta-analysis of all the available evidence, conducted this year by scientists at Cambridge and Harvard, among others, and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluded that saturated fats could not, after all, be said to cause heart disease.
2040’s America will be like 1840’s Britain, with robots?
Scott Walker, in Dead Heat, Faces Third Election in Four Years - The national Democratic Party throws everything they have at the possible presidential contender.
I'll admit I'm not much of a fan of the musical arts, particularly symphony or opera. It's never appealed to me. I don't dislike it, I'm just not a fan. I attended my town's symphony orchestra (not an official symphony orchestra, as it's part-time), and it was a good way to spend two hours of a Saturday evening and socialize. But I have to admit I would've rather been home watching my Syracuse Orangemen play Duke in basketball (they lost, and it was a great game). That's just how my tastes have evolved.
Tonight I watched the Kansas City Symphony play the national anthem at Game 6 of the World Series. I began to wonder, if you're a trained musician and you don't make a major orchestra, do you begin trying out for smaller city orchestras? I had no idea. I suppose you begin looking for seats in various cities until you can find one. Then I wondered whether it's lucrative work.
These are extremely difficult jobs. While I may not be deeply involved in the symphony, I am well aware how hard it is to be good enough to be asked to join one, especially the best (Boston, Philadelphia, New York, etc.). That said, how much could it pay?
I was rather surprised. I didn't expect them to live on subsistence wages, but it makes me wish I'd had a greater appreciation for music (and the talent to go along with it) in my youth.
Sad to say, Psychiatric meds cannot really fix anything, just ameliorate and prevent. But that is true of many meds. I do not think that our meds have anything to do with the underlying problems whether in the soul, in the genes, or in the wiring. As I am wont to say, a headache is not an aspirin deficiency disorder.
Our ability to control or prevent psychotic episodes is remarkable, but still the patient is never fully well. Quit the meds, and it can return.
How 
Ars Poetica 
Some people love horror tales and frightening, high-suspense movies, while some cannot tolerate them.
That is, unless you are on a low- or zero-carb weight loss diet.
Alcohol-free
Book in the mail: Rebecca Bynum's 
Ten Things