Tuesday, April 2. 2013
 Meet the new climate deniers
Fiendish Turtle Smuggler Tried to Steal Over 10% of an Entire Species
A Brief History of Applause
10 Things I hate about LA
Pregnant "man" and his divorce case
A.D.H.D. Seen in 11% of U.S. Children as Diagnoses Rise
The Bible vs. the Heart - The human heart alone is a terribly flawed guide to social policy.
When Men Forsake God, Tyranny Always Follows
“Why so many jobs are crappy"
Is Disability the New Welfare?
“Unfit for Work: The Startling Rise of Disability in America”
The Obamas live the 1 percent life
Connecticut lawmakers clamp down on guns
The Bigotry attitude: Inequality for All:
Bigotry is too prized a resource to just watch it drain away in some communal pool of brotherhood and sisterhood. The only thing to do is to find ways to dam it up and create national parks of bigotry that will allow future generations of civil rights warriors to rough it by camping out under the burning crosses while admiring themselves for their artificial courage in defense of a manufactured cause.
Monday, April 1. 2013
KC Johnson: A College with Strange Sex Misconduct Hearings ('No' Means 'No,' and 'Yes' Can Mean 'No' Too)
If I were a horny college student today, I think I'd feel more comfortable chasing the townie girls. But that runs up against this advice: Princeton mom: Women have a 'shelf life'. Why that article got so much attention is beyond me, because every gal knows it even if they decide to wait a while.
Warmist claims Anthropogenic Global Warming causes more polar ice. The pirate doesn't call it "HotColdWetDry" for nothing. (h/t, reader)
Indeed, it explains everything, and few theories have this sort of power to explain everything that happens outdoors - after the fact.
Sunday, March 31. 2013
My pastor quoted from Tim Keller's new book, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters in his New Year's sermon yesterday.
He called Keller a prophet. (He refers to anyone who speaks difficult, deep Truths as "speaking prophetically.") On the subject of even good things becoming false idols, he used these Keller quotes which I took from an Amazon review:
"The human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them." Thus anything can be an idol and, really, everything has been an idol to one person or another. The great deception of idols is we are prone to think that idols are only bad things. But evil is far more subtle than this. "We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life."
If you happen to be in NYC on a Sunday, you could do worse than to visit his Redeemer Presbyterian Church. (It's a church, ie not a fancy building but a congregation of God-seekers and worshippers.) They have five worship locations in Manhattan.
Pastor Keller usually preaches at their 6 pm service at the Hunter College auditorium.
 From Mead on Blue Model Churches:
Neither Jesus nor any of the twelve apostles could get a job in any self-respecting mainline church in America today; none of them had a degree from an accredited seminary.
Christ is my Pastor, my Lord, my teacher, my guide, and my friend. Happy Easter, readers. The Barrister team is off to occupy our (mainline but distinctly non-Progressive and verging on evangelical) New England Congregational church, then a long brunch-lunch with cocktails and champagne, oysters, clams, squid, lobsters, foie gras sliders, rare prime rib with horseradish and rare lamb chops, Halibut with caper and tuna sauce, ridiculous desserts, then (for me) naptime. Why not?
Saturday, March 30. 2013
Gerard's Cut-Rate Resurrection.
I have many thoughts about his post, but I am not going to write them down. I am just glad he is still with us.
 I am halfway through Helprin's* latest novel, In Sunlight and in Shadow. I've read most of his novels.
It's a love story in New York, but also has been described as a love song to New York. I think he also approached it as a chance to put all of his thoughts about what life is about into the words of his protagonist. Thus sometimes he lapses into "telling" instead of "depicting." His protagonist is Harry Copeland, a Jewish NYC leather goods manufacturer just returned from WW 2 who falls in love with an enormously wealthy and social WASP heiress.
Unlike his (I think) masterpiece, Soldier of the Great War, the new book could have used some vigorous editing but, like all of his stuff, worth the read because he is a very smart and observant fellow who just can't resist throwing all of his thoughts in there.
Helprin has an impressive and interesting bio. He had many adventures in life before settling down to write stories (and political commentary on the side). That's the best way to do it.
I like the detail that he does most of the manual labor on his farm in Virginia.
(* Note: Not to be confused with Mark Halperin, the Time Magazine politico)
MORE FREE STUFF– FOR DEADBEATS!
As she asks, "Does doing the “right thing” even matter anymore, or does it just make you a doofus?"
Springtime in the northern hemisphere. Time to think about boats. Vicem (in Istanbul) builds nice powerboats.
Here's a new Vicem 82. Handsome and not ostentatious, looks sea-worthy, but I'm not sure I could trust myself to pull her up to the gas dock.
Coming (1950)
On longer evenings,
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon —
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.
Friday, March 29. 2013
I saw a nice lady for consultation a few years ago. She was distraught, wanted help in rebuilding her life and her emotional strength. Her husband, age 54, had, after an evening of good sex with her, informed her that he had realized that he was gay, and needed to leave her to pursue a gay life style because he did not want to deceive her or betray her.
They cried together and held eachother. She cried for two weeks. After that, she began having panic attacks. He moved out, and the legal aspects of the divorce proceedings had been easy and mutually agreeable.
Six months had gone by and she still felt shattered. The reality of her life had been exploded. I told her that grief takes at least a year. Mind you, this was a sophisticated urban woman who had once been in the fashion business and who assured me she could readily identify gay guys at a distance. He had always been a loving, sexy, loyal husband with no hyper-macho ways, and no stereotypical gay interests or mannerisms. Good father, too. He worked in finance.
In the six months apart, she told me that he had seemed to transform himself from an ordinary fellow into a flamboyantly gay man who drinks too much, dyes his hair, spends weekends in Provincetown and weeknights in gay bars. He told her it took him 40 years "to find his inner fag." He says he'll love her forever, support her and the kids, but now has found his real self and feels happier than he ever had.
I thought to myself "That was a real gay marriage." I also wondered whether he was Bipolar, but it didn't matter because it was over and her challenge was to write what I term "a new chapter."
I had seen this a number of times before, in mid-life men and in women too. I can't say I understand it. Nobody really does, but I do understand the grief. Agonizing. I also understand the horror of wondering whether much of one's life has been fraudulently-lived in a fake reality.
In my line of work, I encounter plenty of people who live in fake realities of their own construction, but it's not ordinarily about sexual matters. It's usually about other things. I carry the burden of a thousand stories in my soul, but don't feel sorry for me. It's a privilege, and I get paid to carry them.
(nb: real details of this story are totally altered and combined - fake but true)
Scott Turow on Amazon/Goodreads: This is how modern monopolies can be built.
Smart move by Amazon. A heck of a lot more people read Goodreads than read the NYT Book Review or, God knows, the NY Review of Books or The London Review of Books. I do enjoy the intelligence of the London Review.
People still love books but, with the appealing Teaching Company DVDs, it's tough for me to do more than a book per week.
 In March, our White Throated Sparrows and Juncos begin heading north to their breeding grounds, and our Song Sparrows begin arriving from their winter haunts somewhat further south in the US.
The ground-feeding Song Sparrow can be seen throughout the US. The tweety mating call of the male in Spring (here) is familiar to everybody who steps outdoors.
It is theorized that the guy with the best song gets the hottest chicks.
Thanks to Google, all of your favorite runs.
I am just back from my assigned 1- hour Good Friday vigil at church (4-5 AM). So quiet, peaceful, serious, in semi-darkness (but with an almost -full moon shining in the windows) with the black-draped cross. I imagined being one of those who kept him company during his execution. I prayed for the souls of all of those I care about, and I prayed that his death would indeed redeem my sinful nature and my flawed soul. Lay it all at the foot of the cross, Pastor advises.
"Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living."
They bought it for $3 at a yard sale
Excellent investment, but I would not have even noticed it. Those people have a good eye for junk.
A review of gun safes.
I just keep mine locked in a bedroom closet. That meets the legal requirement here. But, since I have a carry permit, can I carry at night?
New York State: Least free state in the US
Freedom in the 50 states, but mostly in the red states?
Hunters Begin Boycotting Colorado
What the heck happened to Colorado?
But why does marriage require a license?
It does not, really. There is "common law marriage."
15 Year Old Wisconsin Conservative Meets Bullying From Teachers
If Obama Really Wanted to Reduce Gun Crimes He’d Focus on the Inner City… But He Won’t Because It’s Too Obvious
The culture war was never a fair fight
Sunstein sees government officials as an enlightened “guardian class” ...
We can't even be trusted to feed ourselves anymore. Who anointed these guardians? Aren't they just lowly politicos - a widely-disrespected class of people in America?
Cuban tourism: Castro Cash Cow Gets Fatter than Ever
Do they go there for the whores or for the Poverty Porn?
Media Ignores Lavish Obama Vacations, Slammed Bush for Mountain Biking
Teachers’ Unions Don’t Empower Teachers
A Steyn rant: The end of free speech in Canada
Here's Hate Speech for you: I hate those Canadian court Thought Police jerks. So crucify me.
The Truth about Bob Woodward - and Nixon
Seduction: Tell them how special and smart they are
The Wisdom of Dan Quayle
America’s “Daddy Party” Needs To Grow Up
Let's cool it with the marriage wars
Thursday, March 28. 2013
 If marriage is primarily a legal contract, then why can't two elderly sisters marry? It might very well be to their advantage, and they may love eachother deeply. Or does marriage have to involve sex? If so, who from the government is going to check to make sure that sex is happening? God knows, the world is full of sexless marriages.
And, yes, what about polygamy? Why not? It's not Christian but it is Old Testament Jewish and it is modern (quietly) Mormon - and Islam. How many wives did David have? I read that Solomon had 200 wives and 800 concubines, or maybe the other way around. I do not know when the Israelites gave up polygamy.
The whole topic becomes more and more absurd and confusing as cultural traditions are undermined. Gays can get married while the heterosexual people are now up to 50% childbirth out of wedlock. Crazy world. It's called cultural change.
Then I noticed this: Kagan ’09: ‘There Is No Constitutional Right To Same-Sex Marriage’. That statement signifies to me that she is an unwise person. The Constitution does not set up government to dole out rights to the people, but rather to protect the mostly-unlimited rights of a free people. But I am repeating myself.
Freedom and privacy require no "penumbra." Back to the US Constitution, the American social contract:
-
This list of rights should not be read to limit in any way any other rights of the people.
-
The powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited by the Constitution to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Obamacare is not medical insurance in any real sense of the term "insurance." It is set up to pay your medical bills. It is no freebie, however. It's expensive.
Coyote splains it one more time: The Meaning of Health "Insurance"
I have two annoyed comments, and a few brief questions:
- Would my hernia repair have cost me $18,000 to the hospital if there were no insurance?
- Obamacare will render my medical insurace plan, an old-fashioned family Major Medical, illegal next year. So I can't keep the insurance I like.
- Will it be illegal for businesses, and rich folks, to self-insure under Obamacare? How would that work? And what about people like me, who like to pay their doctors themselves? Will that be permitted? What if I want to take Granny to Switzerland for herbal treatments for her dementia?
Hunting buddy emailed me a pic of his new Large Munsterlander pup, of the above name (born in Minnesota). Pup needs a real handle.
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good dog warning sign 
Bruce Walker: 
