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.
In Mind and Cosmos, subtitled Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Nagel revives the concept of teleology on the basis of his conviction that the mind-body problem has more serious ramifications for evolutionary science than is ordinarily accepted. How does the electrochemical activity of neurons in the human brain produce subjective, first-person experience? Nobody knows. Nagel says that the appearance of conscious beings such as us can be described as the universe waking up. Yet to him it seems unlikely that life would ever have got started in the first place, somehow springing forth from ‘dead matter’; still more unlikely that some forms of life would have developed consciousness; and extremely improbable that one form of life would have acquired the ‘transcendent’ power of reason. In order to explain these events, Nagel suggests, you need more than simply the ‘mechanistic’ tools of the laws of physics, natural selection, and so on. You need not just physical theory but ‘psychophysical theory’. And you might even need teleology.
It’s a bold claim, but not in itself an unscientific one. Indeed, what Nagel’s critics rarely conceded was the fact that teleological talk remains rampant to this day in popular and even academic science writing. Vast subterranean seams of purposive metaphor imply a picture of final cause not only in modern biology but in chemistry and physics, too. It has long been accepted that ordinary descriptions of biological function, such as ‘The heart is for pumping blood’, are teleologically inflected shorthand. But we also commonly read, for example, that subatomic particles ‘know’ or ‘choose’ the ‘right’ path to take; that molecules rearrange themselves ‘in order to’ achieve a certain energy state; or that traits in organisms evolve ‘in order to’ allow the animal to do something new.
Our metaphors are teleological, our language and understanding is metaphorical. Where does it all end?
6:1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 6:2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 6:4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 6:18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 6:20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
A government limited to few things can probably do those things well, and thus it's likely to be trusted. A government that tries to do many things, might do them badly, and be less highly regarded.
“But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems, that the economic downturn happened because our government didn’t tax enough, spend enough and control enough. And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.”
The right debate should be about what kind of immigrants America should be admitting. It should ask how immigration can best benefit our economy and citizens. Countries with booming economies, countries that are, like the United States, immigrant magnets—Australia and Ireland, for instance—have set their immigration priorities in precisely this way, creating much more rational systems than ours. Managed as part of our broader economic policy, immigration can provide America with badly needed skills, boost productivity, and raise our living standard.
But we’ll never get to an immigration system that serves our national interest until we stop debating the issue in terms set down 50 years ago...
Silent Cal is one of our very few presidential heroes. One quote:
What compelled Coolidge to persevere and enabled him to succeed? The
traditions of Vermont and its “hardy self-contained people,” as he
described them, always inspired him. Respect for the written law
animated him, but he also cherished the spiritual and what we call
natural law: “Men do not make laws. They do but discover them,” he told
Massachusetts state senators in 1914. His wife, Grace, one of the most
beautiful first ladies, gave him the confidence to move forward. A
ferocious discipline in work proved crucial as well. As documented in
White House appointment books, whereas other presidents met sporadically
with budget advisers, Coolidge met faithfully and weekly with his
Budget Bureau director, General Herbert Mayhew Lord. An intuitive
understanding of the struggles of small business aided Coolidge. Though
he was not, like Margaret Thatcher, born over a storefront, Coolidge was
born beside one. A keen sense of timing also helped him: Coolidge, a
shrewd politician, knew when to fight and when to wait. A thorough
understanding of the devices of government, and a willingness to use
them, proved key too. Also crucial was the Coolidge willingness to be
unpopular, which he displayed while still governor of Massachusetts,
when he stared down the striking Boston police, or when, as president,
he turned down his own people, farmers, by repeatedly vetoing subsidies
for them.
You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. The truth is, I haven't been feeling very well. It's not that I'm getting any worse; it's that I seemed to have stopped getting better. I did real well (according to the doc) after my tumor operation, but it seems like sometime during November I kind of leveled off at about 75% better. I still have bouts of weakness and sleepiness and a physical feeling bordering on nausea. And I just haven't found it in me to write about anything. As long-time readers know, even my most dire and scariest of articles, like the ones on the domestic spy drones, still have an upbeat, chipper edge to them, just because that's who I am.
They already did one standard blood test but the doc wants to do a more elaborate test, which I just can't afford right now. I'm already into the hospital for almost 300 clams and don't want to sink any deeper, nor am I sure they'd let me. I still have my operation's donation link here, but I wouldn't hope for any help on this. It's one thing to pitch in when someone's got a pending operation, whereas everybody's got medical bills. But I felt obligated to toss it out there.
By the way, there was one ironic note that I forgot to mention in my post-op posts. Within a few weeks of my operation, both my mother and a close friend up in Miami Beach had operations that involved surgery.
Both of them got infections after the operation. Thankfully, modern medicine came to their rescue.
Me, getting my operation in dirty, filthy, don't-drink-the-water Mexico, sailed through without a hitch.
That says something -- but I'm honestly not sure what.
If I do end up just kind of fading away, I'd like to say what an honor it's been to blog here these past five years. In twenty years of being online, I have never seen a site like it. Where else will you see video essays like my posts on horses, baseball and the amazing Jackie Evancho, only to next read an inside look at the higher education bubble, followed by a penetrating inquiry into the human psyche -- then end up with 'Chipmunk Of The Week'?
There's just no putting a price on something like that.
... the shock, in my mind, is not his commitment to compulsory redistribution, but that a leader so young has such old ideas. He is a man from America's past.
Barack Obama is old-school. He believes in top-down planning, not bottom-up incentives. He sees government as an industrial machine, though he lives in the age of the network. He trusts political and artificial imperatives from Washington, not natural and organic choices by ordinary Americans.His answer to irresponsive, ineffective, unaffordable old government is not reform, but to produce more of it. Obama's bright young smile cloaks archaic ideas, ill-suited for today's global economic race.
...even after almost half a century, somewhere inside I’m still eighteen and scratching a living on horseback in chaps, helping push a dusty, cranky herd of cattle to the upper range, with the brim of my cowboy hat shading a blinding bright summer view that stretches out well beyond next payday and leapfrogs my petty cares, a view from where we stood on the high summer range, overlooking the winter pastures far below, and on beyond the cities known and unknown, my young heart sailing away past the verdant, distant hills, careening towards an unknown brilliant future … and now, like the old cowboy with his idiot grin, I find myself wandering that same path still, with that same young heart and those same illusions and foolish dreams.
“I set out, usually, on a mission of self-discoveryto find out what I really think about a subject. I don’t have fixed opinions or views when I start to write; it’s writing that forces them out of me.”
Joseph Epstein, from a review of his latest book. I am an Epstein fan. Smart guy, says whatever he thinks and damn the torpedoes.
500,000 rail passengers move daily through that remarkable two-level space. That's a lot, but it will be more when the Long Island Railroad's new underground construction is complete (LIRR now only goes to Penn Station out in the West Side hinterlands). It was brilliant to put those tracks underground up to 96th St., thus creating upper Park Avenue and its now-insanely valuable real estate.
This ol' country boy still loves NYC. In my youth, I greeted so many gals and pals at that station, coming or going, that I feel nostalgia whenever I am there. Adventure. It looks and feels far better now, but that musty old train station smell is the same.
My pic of the Grand Central Market. Good stuff for prosperous commuters
to pick up on the way home. Excellent cheese and fish stalls.
A clip from 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade featuring the full Glenn Miller band, the Modernaires (they're the card players and Paula Kelly), and wait'll you see Dorothy Dandridge cake-walk with the Nicholas Brothers (she was married to one of them). This gotta be one of the all-time Choo-Choos --maybe the wildest, funniest, ever! Also, Milton Berle is in the mis-en-scene audience --
We all want to be effective in achieving our life goals. Like all of the classic or semi-classic books in this seminar, the best advantage is to be gained from group discussion of favorite points in a seminar forum or a group of peers instead of just by reading them. A book group sort of thing.
Is it possible to create new habits? Of course it is, but learning requires humility and improvement requires self-discipline and risk-taking. I am eager to learn from others. We all tend to learn how to negotiate life by example, or by our failures. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.
All of these books have helped me enormously in my work life and in managing my personal life.
Previous books in this semester's not-for-credit course:
It's the end of hunting season, and I have not killed enough stuff this year to satisfy the hunter in me. I have a doe in the freezer, countless pheasants and chukars, a few Canada Geese and a bunch of ducks of several species. A couple of grouse, but we have eaten most of them and all of the woodcock. (Ask me how to make woodcock ravioli with jus de gibier and black truffle - I will tell you.)
There is a feeling of regret. How many hunting seasons does a man have in one lifetime? And work, family, and obligations intrude, as they should and must. Carpe diem, if you can. It's been a terrible winter for ducks - weather too pleasant.
The only consolation is that it is now time to really get cooking all of the good game in the freezer. For starters, we're doing a large-scale venison bourguignon for a get-together next weekend. The following week, will do the venison filets for some lucky guests. With the Canada geese, I will have a small party and sautee the breasts rare with some mushrooms and celery root puree, with gibier sauce, etc. For the ducks - oh, man. Very special recipes for those precious wild spirits, which I may write about sometime. For the Snow Geese, a nice cassoulet with some other mixed game. For all the bones, wings, carcasses, etc., including the carcass of the Thanksgiving turkey and the bone of the Christmas ham, we'll make a gallon or two of Uncle Bill's jus de gibier, to use with everything, saving some of it for a special, once a year consomme de gibier for Valentine's Day.
Despite all of these delights, I'd rather be in the woods and swamps with the dogs and a gun.
The reason the Democrat’s trash talk message worked so well is because it fell on fertile soil. The Left knew that it couldn’t sell Obama — his record did not speak for itself — but Leftist strategizers also knew that for decades the Left had created an intellectual atmosphere in which it was easy for people to believe, all evidence to the contrary, that Romney was an evil, soulless man...
Do things have purpose? Nagel's new book has provoked plenty of reaction. From 
This is Kate Upton wearing body paint, 
You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. The truth is, I haven't been feeling very well. It's not that I'm getting any worse; it's that I seemed to have stopped getting better. I did real well (according to the doc) after my tumor operation, but it seems like sometime during November I kind of leveled off at about 75% better. I still have bouts of weakness and sleepiness and a physical feeling bordering on nausea. And I just haven't found it in me to write about anything. As long-time readers know, even my most dire and scariest of articles, like the ones on the domestic spy drones, still have an upbeat, chipper edge to them, just because that's who I am.
We got two feet up here.
A wonderful read. From 
It's the end of hunting season, and I have not killed enough stuff this year to satisfy the hunter in me. I have a doe in the freezer, countless pheasants and chukars, a few Canada Geese and a bunch of ducks of several species. A couple of grouse, but we have eaten most of them and all of the woodcock. (Ask me how to make woodcock ravioli with jus de gibier and black truffle - I will tell you.)