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.
It's a cliche because there is so much truth in that expression that it is at least half-true. You could make the same case for bad luck.
I advise the youth to regard life as a conveyor belt of opportunities rolling past you. Experiences, jobs, relationships, books, learning, etc. They roll by, but almost never come back. If you grab enough of them, some will work out. On the other hand, the same bad selections that life offers keep returning, don't they?
I have been lucky in ways that I had nothing at all to do with (raised in an educated, middle-upper middle class church-going American family with no divorce), decent genes, a functional and honest personality (despite my share of flaws which nobody really knows about but one of which happens to be a lack of talent for anything requiring talent), etc. However, I give myself credit for making the most of those gifts in my pursuit of happiness and satisfaction. I suppose that I "could have made more of myself," but I didn't want to.
I've decided not to riot today. I'm fairly certain I'm not going to loot anything. I don't feel like overcoming, or singing about overcoming. I'm overcome with not overcoming, actually. I believe I can resist the urge to lock arms for days at a time. I do not wish to be quoted in the press. You can quote me on that. On to the news.
There is a story about the great Catalan surrealist painter Salvador Dali. It is said that in the last years of his life, when he was already famous, he signed checks knowing that they would not be submitted to the bank for payment. Rather, after partying with his friends and consuming the most expensive items the restaurants had to offer, he would ask for the bill, pull out one of his checks, write the amount, and sign it. Before handing over the check, he quickly turned it around, made a drawing on the back and autographed it. Dali knew the owner of the restaurant would not cash the check but keep it,put it in a frame, and display it in the most prominent place in the restaurant: “An original Dali.”
History may be evolving away from the Westphalian State, with its unitary national culture, flags and traditions and moving towards affinity groups whose allegiance is primarily to themselves; which only form temporary alliances based on expedience in competition with other affinity groups.
It’s hip, it’s entertaining—but where are the families?What is a city for? Ever since cities first emerged thousands of years ago, they have been places where families could congregate and flourish.
A city is a place where everyone is lonely together.
Garlic is one of the most popular flavorings on the planet, and rightly so. There is no point to growing it, because it is so cheap and abundant. Like taters and like pasta. Who would bother growing pasta these days?
Despite not being an Italian "garlic-eater", I love garlic. I am informed that I occasionally reek of it. Too bad. Actually it seems that the Chinese consume the most.
Perhaps nothing reflects the descent of the yeomanry than the fading role of the ten million small businesses with under 20 employees, which currently employ upwards of forty million Americans. Long a key source of new jobs, small business start-ups have declined as a portion of all business growth from 50 percent in the early 1980s to 35% in 2010. Indeed, a 2014 Brookings report, revealed that small business “dynamism”, measured by the growth of new firms compared with the closing of older ones, has declined significantly over the past decade, with more firms closing than starting for the first time in a quarter century.
Instead of stemming from the grassroots, the recovery after the latest crash was led, unlike in previous expansions, by larger firms while small company hiring remained relatively paltry. Self-employment rose, but increasingly this took the form of sole proprietorships as opposed to expanding smaller companies with employees. By 2013, smaller firms with under one hundred employees added far fewer jobs than in the prior decade. Unlike prior post-war recoveries, since 2007, grassroots companies did not lead the way out of recession and continued to lose ground compared with larger companies that either could afford the costs or avoid the taxes imposed by, the Clerical regime.
Well, happy Monday to you. That's Bird Dog at the beach. He's older than that now, and the trucks are rustier. He left me in charge, and I ran out of his bourbon yesterday, and he won't be back for a week. He asked me to look after his Australian Goldfish, too, and that's not going so well, either. I assume they're Australian, because they're floating upside down right now, and they're so somnolent, I think they think it's nighttime. Ah, well, here's the links:
When deciding whether Google should spend millions or even billions of dollars in acquiring a new company, its chief executive, Larry Page, asks whether the acquisition passes the toothbrush test: Is it something you will use once or twice a day, and does it make your life better?
The New York Times assumes Google is full of geniuses. I don't. They're just sitting on a pile of cash. They have little idea how they got it, and it should have been distributed to investors and paid as taxes. Instead they hoard it and squander it. Nothing but their hijacking of the old fashioned Yellow Pages has ever made a nickel.
Well, why not go out there and change your view of humanity today. Drive to a Starbucks in a unionized cab, and try not to run over the homeless people playing soccer in the parking lot. But whatever you do, don't like anyone on Facebook.
No visit to NYC is complete without a little side trip to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. The old Little Italy in downtown Manhattan has mostly been invaded by new Chinese immigrants who have been expanding Chinatown, and the Italians have moved through the tunnel to Jersey. Don't ask me why.
Today, New York's Little Italy is Arthur Avenue in the Fordham area of the Bronx. It's near the lovely Fordham campus, The Bronx Zoo, and the famous and magnificent New York Botanical Garden.
Is it a "safe" neighborhood? Hardly need to ask that about a heavily Italian neighborhood in New York, for several reasons. You do not need to lock your car. Many in the metropolitan area come by just to shop for Italian delicacies.
The restaurants do not take reservations, so you have to plan it out, be early, or wait in line a bit. Lots of folks I know like Roberto. I need to get there soon.
We've been posting about fly fishing. Is it an effete hobby for the elite?
God knows, it's a harmless and pleasant hobby, requiring art, skills, knowledge, and only minimal intelligence. As we say, it's no way to make sure you have supper because bait on a hook is the best way to do that whether in pond, stream, lake, or ocean. You can catch a trout with a worm in ten seconds.
Bamboo fly rods can cost anywhere from near a thousand to a few thousand, and fancy fly reels can be expensive too even though they are hardly needed. Purists scoff at fiberglass or graphite fly rods, partly because they are non-traditional and partly because they are a little easier to use. Many trout streams are limited to fly fishing.
For me, fishing, hunting, and hiking a trail are just excuses to spend time outdoors enjoying God's creation and taking not of every critter, tree and plant, and the geology. It's good fun to shoot a bird, catch a trout or a Striped Bass on a fly, etc., but that is a different sort of day than going to the store to get them.
Sport is sport and shopping is shopping.
The skills and lore of fly fishing are endless and great time-wasters for fellows and for a few special gals. Lots of guys spend hours tying their own flies, inventing their own flies, practicing the various sorts of casts, trying for salmon, salt-water game fish, etc.
We have had a decade or two of some experts preaching that fat and salt will kill you. Many of us docs have been debunking those old claims, to little avail.
The premise behind campus activism is always the same. The college campus is a microcosm of the larger world. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens at Oberlin or Sweet Briar is imagined to rock the foundations of the old order. Patriarchy trembles. The Zionist Entity is called to account. The coal-breathing capitalist Earth warmers feel the chill of a generation walking on their graves.
I have never met a stupid adult person. I have met plenty of ignorant people and people lacking in the curse of curiosity, but that's different. Mostly, we meet people with limited areas of stupidity: lack of self-awareness, lack of information or understanding, islands of emotionalism or impulsivity, unexamined biases, self-affirming rationalizations, etc.
Well, Bird Dog must be halfway to Canobie Lake Park by now, wearing black socks and flip-flops and an "I'm With Stupid" T Shirt his wife gave him for Christmas back in Reagan's first term. It's faded a bit with washing, and the arrow on the belly under the text that used to point to his companion has been worn away entirely by the rusty chrome arm of the mower every Saturday, so it's kind of a Zen thing now. Have fun, Bird Dog.
"The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do."
At any given time, there are always a few people that see things as they are, not as they wish them to be. If you put a gun to my head, I'd have trouble naming them right now.
A Google employee forgot to remove Post-it notes and it’s fueling a lawsuit Google, Facebook, Apple et al. are run by the worst kinds of greedy grasping turds ever seen in commerce. They would have had a back desk with no responsibilities in any Gilded Age business that produced anything worthwhile.
They've awarded this year's Fields Medals. It worries me that I completely understood one of the descriptions, because I'm a dolt. I thought they only gave out phony Nobels.
The Lobster Roll is right up there with Clambake as classic New England summer cuisine. Clambakes have to be made by you, on the beach in a hole in the sand just like the Indians used to, but every New England seafood joint has its own recipe for the simple Lobster Roll.
Garlic is one of the most popular flavorings on the planet, and rightly so. There is no point to growing it, because it is so cheap and abundant. Like taters and like pasta. Who would bother growing pasta these days?
No visit to NYC is complete without a little side trip to 
We've been posting about fly fishing. Is it an effete hobby for the elite?
The Lobster Roll is right up there with Clambake as classic New England summer cuisine. Clambakes have to be made by you, on the beach in a hole in the sand just like the Indians used to, but every New England seafood joint has its own recipe for the simple Lobster Roll.