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.
MacDonald: The Humanities Have Forgotten Their Humanity - When Shakespeare lost out to 'rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class' at UCLA, something vital was harmed. (paywall)
Plenty of my family members and good pals are Liberals. They probably think I'm half-crazy. I quietly notice that they do not live like Lefties.They are often more materially-oriented and money-oriented than I am, minimize their taxes,and like cars. They just like that virtuous, self-congratulatory Lefty feeling.
For one thing, he did paint "an America that was." I lived it, it was my growing-up world. Not everybody's, but mine for sure in New England. Church, barber shop, the town drunk, the town meeting, teasing the girls, backyard baseball, the classrooms, all of it. Call it fine art, pop-art, illustration, whatever. Was Watteau a "fine artist" or an interior decorator? I'd say the latter. Picasso? No and yes.
Rockwell documented the small, mundane moments of ordinary life. His pictures are great fun to look at in the same way that Breughel's are. Paint can accomplish much more than a camera ever can, but it's all either for religious or secular entertainment.
The Rockwell Museum is in Stockbridge, MA, if you are ever passing through there. Same town as Alice's Restaurant.
From the Editor of The Atlantic, Surviving Anxiety - I've tried therapy, drugs, and booze. Here’s how I came to terms with the nation's most common mental illness:
I wish I could say that my anxiety is a recent development, or that it is limited to public speaking. It’s not. My wedding was accompanied by sweating so torrential that it soaked through my clothes and by shakes so severe that I had to lean on my bride at the altar, so as not to collapse. At the birth of our first child, the nurses had to briefly stop ministering to my wife, who was in the throes of labor, to attend to me as I turned pale and keeled over. I’ve abandoned dates; walked out of exams; and had breakdowns during job interviews, plane flights, train trips, and car rides, and simply walking down the street. On ordinary days, doing ordinary things—reading a book, lying in bed, talking on the phone, sitting in a meeting, playing tennis—I have thousands of times been stricken by a pervasive sense of existential dread and been beset by nausea, vertigo, shaking, and a panoply of other physical symptoms. In these instances, I have sometimes been convinced that death, or something somehow worse, was imminent.
Even when not actively afflicted by such acute episodes, I am buffeted by worry: about my health and my family members’ health; about finances; about work; about the rattle in my car and the dripping in my basement; about the encroachment of old age and the inevitability of death; about everything and nothing. Sometimes this worry gets transmuted into low-grade physical discomfort—stomachaches, headaches, dizziness, pains in my arms and legs—or a general malaise, as though I have mononucleosis or the flu. At various times, I have developed anxiety-induced difficulties breathing, swallowing, even walking; these difficulties then become obsessions, consuming all of my thinking.
It's a vivid description of what we used to call Anxiety Neurosis but now term Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Stossel says that nothing has helped him except for moderate use of Xanax and/or alcohol. He has concluded that he just needs to live with it, if not to embrace it.
Flights of Fancy in Avian Evolution - From mousebirds to terror birds, the class Aves has encompassed a remarkable diversity of species over the past 150 million years.
Pic below is a Snowy Owl. They come down here in winter and are diurnal, but I haven't seen one lately. They like big open spaces - beaches, marshes, dumps, meadows - that remind them of the tundra. Terror bird, for rats.
God resolved the dilemma between love and justice by taking them both all the way. The creator of the world took the hit we had coming. The anger, the condemnation, the judgment all fell on Jesus, who bore it all out of love. That, for Christians, is what makes Christmas such a special time of year. God really knows us; he knows the worst things about us and isn’t fooled by our rationalizations and evasions. And he still loves us enough to be born among us and to pay the price for all we have done.
Many stars took it upon themselves to head to New Orleans post-Katrina. They hoped to provide comfort and assistance to the unfortunate people impacted by the storm. As I've noted here, I have no quarrel with people giving their time and effort to a worthy cause. I respect those who put their time and money on the line.
I also respect trying to be 'green', if that's what you're into. I'm 'green', though not in a manner Ed Begley, Jr. would approve.
However sanctimonious some Hollywood stars may be, it's disturbing to see well-meaning organizations get swindled.
Going overboard on the green express will undoubtedly lead to more problems such as those Brad Pitt's Make it Right Foundation has experienced. A new, but untested, method of treating wood which avoids toxic chemicals was used on portions of New Orleans homes. The wood is now rotting.
Some claim the problems were due to New Orleans' humidity. I have to wonder, since they ran into issues up north.
Yesterday a former NFL punter, Chris Kluwe, wrote an article for Deadspin that intimated he was released due to his advocacy in support of gay marriage/gay rights. I doubt very much his outspokenness led to his release. He had other tryouts and didn't make those teams. My guess is his performance was declining, which Kluwe suggests when he mentioned his knee surgery.
Kluwe had, or has, a monster leg. He is well known for out-kicking his coverage toward the end of his tenure. In the NFL, this is indicative of being a poor punter.
Kluwe hoped someone in management would tell him what to do, be quiet or speak up. Management never does that, because formally telling someone to keep their mouth shut can lead to lawsuits. Best to hint it's not a good idea and let the speaker fill in the blanks. Kluwe, a player well-known for his intelligence, failed to connect those dots.
Others doubt he was let go for his comments. However, if the choice came down to him and someone of equal skill, it's doubtful his comments improved his chances of play. Better to have a less highly visible player doing as good a job for a much lower salary. I used Kluwe's story to provide a life lesson for my boys. Understand that saying what you believe is right and just, and shouldn't necessarily be punishable, but sometimes it's better to say nothing. Unless you are your own boss, you should consider yourself replaceable.
The Vikings have said they will look into his allegations. However, the primary statistic for punting success, pinning opponents inside the 20, had dropped to a new low his final season.
Did someone in the organization say or do something 'wrong'? Probably, in today's world we're all guilty of this at some point. Is that meaningful? Not really. I don't support anti-gay slurs, but everyone is allowed to have a point of view. More importantly, when you work for any firm, you need to be careful to not put them at risk, particularly if they make it clear you're stepping on some toes. My guess is Kluwe's skills were in decline, and he didn't help his own case. He certainly doesn't make himself look better as a bitter, petulant complainant. If anything, my respect for his willingness to speak up on issues (even some I disagree with him on) has dropped because he has become so self-serving with this article.
Indeed, I've seen some people suggest Tim Tebow can't find a home in the NFL because of his beliefs. I doubt that is any more true than Kluwe's claims. Even if it is true, Tebow has the good sense to not say anything about it.
Does having a college degree guarantee that you can write a coherent, well-developed, logical and grammatical ten-page essay? Certainly not. Isn't that a high school skill, anyway (see No One Wants to Teach Writing - At Brooklyn College, professors pass the buck rather than take responsibility for students' writing)?
Is he exaggerating? Or are they mostly diploma mills, rent-seekers, needing the income? Remember the bumpersticker: "If all else fails, lower your standards" ?
"Right now a student graduating from, say, California State University at Fresno, Kansas State University, or the State University of New York at Brockport with a 3.3 average has a tough time getting considered for a good job. These schools, while by no means considered academic disasters or diploma mills, accept kids that were mostly above average but not exceptionally good high school students. A 3.3 average once denoted "a well above average student" but does not anymore in this era of grade inflation. In short, absent more information, this hypothetical student would be considered "a so-so student from a so-so university," perhaps not worth employers investing human resource department dollars to carefully assess and interview.
Enter the CLA + and the new Gallup-Purdue Index. Our hypothetical student can take the CLA+ and employers can see quickly and inexpensively how he or she fares relative to, say, a 3.1 student graduating from the University of Virginia, UCLA, or Swarthmore College, far more selective institutions. On the basis of those test results, some of the students at the less selective universities will manage to get interviews and serious consideration by employers."
... if you want to look at the real truth about racism in the United States it would have to be that the only things keeping even the last smidgens of race hate alive in the United States are the MSNBC professional racism pecksniffs and their ilk and the current resident of the Oval Office. If they want to see the real racists among us, they need only raise their hand mirrors.
You can’t swing a dead cat by the tail these days without hitting a news story about the lack of legislation issuing from the 113th Congress. From CNN to McClatchy to NPR to the L.A. Times, the air is thick with pieces lamenting that the 113th makes “the infamous ‘do-nothing Congress’ of the late 1940s look downright prolific.”
Apparently we’re all supposed to feel really bad about that.
IMO, talking about inequality is a diversion from talking about how lousy the economy is for almost everybody except for the very rich - and for government employees
The light bulb ban
provides a useful window into the mindset of liberals: the debate has
nothing to do with which bulb is better, but rather who gets to decide
We love The Teaching Company (aka Great Courses), but you can't get "credit" for them. Just learning.
This guy tried online education: An Online Education Odyssey - The author tries to bring some clarity to the online higher education debate by relating his own experiences.
81% of kids have a mental disorder? "Everybody has Psychiatric symptoms."
The point is, you need a diagnosis for your insurance. Even if you're a troubled normal neurotic, we'll stick a label on you as a favor to you. Dr. Alan Francis, et al (h/t, Boring Old Man)
Almost every act regarded in the mid-20th century as a vice was, by the opening of the 21st century, considered a virtue. As gambling, obscenity, pornography, drugs, divorce, homosexuality, abortion and sneering disaffection became The New Virtue, government at all levels began to move in on the action, starting with casinos and currently involving, in several states and the District of Columbia, an officially approved and bureaucratically managed narcotics trade...
...the next time you see/read/hear about "dark money" and ALEC or the Kochs
in your media outlet of choice, and you don't see anything about Tides,
it's time to fire your media outlet.
Easily done. Tax the businesses, the prosperous, and the middle class until they move out. Camden, NJ, has excellent economic equality, while NYC is the place half the planet would like to move to for risk and opportunity. And for the generous Welfare, too.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the median income allowed you to live with a single earner -- normally the husband, with the wife typically working as homemaker -- and roughly three children. It permitted the purchase of modest tract housing, one late model car and an older one. It allowed a driving vacation somewhere and, with care, some savings as well. I know this because my family was lower-middle class, and this is how we lived, and I know many others in my generation who had the same background. It was not an easy life and many luxuries were denied us, but it wasn't a bad life at all.
Someone earning the median income today might just pull this off, but it wouldn't be easy. Assuming that he did not have college loans to pay off but did have two car loans to pay totaling $700 a month, and that he could buy food, clothing and cover his utilities for $1,200 a month, he would have $1,400 a month for mortgage, real estate taxes and insurance, plus some funds for fixing the air conditioner and dishwasher. At a 5 percent mortgage rate, that would allow him to buy a house in the $200,000 range. He would get a refund back on his taxes from deductions but that would go to pay credit card bills he had from Christmas presents and emergencies. It could be done, but not easily and with great difficulty in major metropolitan areas. And if his employer didn't cover health insurance, that $4,000-5,000 for three or four people would severely limit his expenses. And of course, he would have to have $20,000-40,000 for a down payment and closing costs on his home. There would be little else left over for a week at the seashore with the kids.
And this is for the median. Those below him -- half of all households -- would be shut out of what is considered middle-class lifE...
10,988,269:
2013 Closes With Record Number on Disability Getting Highest-Ever
Monthly Benefits - See more at:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/10988269-2013-closes-record-number-disability-getting-highest-ever#sthash.sYxSrXaK.dpuf
The average American still holds the fanciful belief that, if he isn’t annoying anyone, he should be left alone. To the people running his country, this is as bizarre and unworkable as Phrenology or the Geocentric theory or handing out universal health care without also compelling everyone to buy it.
This is not a nation where people are left alone anymore..
As the Christmas trees come down and the holiday cheer is stored away, this from Mead:Born of a WHAT???
The specifically Christian idea of the Virgin Birth is one of the most controversial and confusing theological concepts around, and a Yuletide blog which didn’t take on the topic wouldn’t be doing its job.
An app for your dreams
John 1:(1-9), 10-18
Does having a college degree guarantee that you can write a coherent, well-developed, logical and grammatical ten-page essay? Certainly not. Isn't that a high school skill, anyway (see 