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.
For Christians, and nobody else really has much business thinking about Advent or observing it, there is something else. If there is no Christmas, there is no Cross, no answer to the problems of sin, separation, failure and pain. Advent is a time to think about what life would be like if we didn’t have faith in a Redeemer, a Savior who was ready, willing and able to complete the broken arc of our lives, forgive what is past and walk with us step by step to help us build something better in the time that is left.
Found the stuff below at Amazon. Might be worth keeping some around, just in case. Don't use it if Santa is in your flue. It supposedly suffocates chimney fires so it would do the same to him.
For us wood-burners, woodpiles feel like money in the bank. Here's a couple of Sipp's woodpiles:
My woodpile, yesterday. I do not have a little drummer boy anymore to stack it for me. I reckon close to 2 cords, maybe 1 1/2. I will get to it after I get to a few other things. The stacked pile of unsplit on the left is bigger than it looks. It's a 1/3 cord of green wood, from Sandy: Maple, Piss-Elm, and Black Locust.
... what should Republicans do? If I were John Boehner, I'd say: "Clearly there's no mandate for small government in the election results. So, if you milquetoast pantywaist sad-sack excuses for the sorriest bunch of so-called Americans who ever lived want to vote for Swede-sized statism, it's time to pony up."
OK, he might want to focus-group it first. But that fundamental dishonesty is the heart of the crisis. You cannot simultaneously enjoy American-sized taxes and European-sized government. One or the other has to go.
I think you'll find this somewhat interesting. Fellow bloggers, take note: the readership delivered a real message in a few of the responses.
Preview:
— There were 400 responses, our PollDaddy limit — Bird Dog's guess on one issue totally nailed it — Ditto my guess on another — Two common MSM memes were totally dismantled — And there are three surprises
The Founding Fathers did not risk their lives and their fortunes to get richer, although that is what Marxist professors teach our kids. Men like Washington hoped our new land would prosper over time, but their purpose in creating a new nation was liberty.
Where did Bridgeport's working class and middle class move to during and after WW2? And where did Bridgeport's more prosperous people move to when they, or their kids, moved out of the center?
Of course, they moved to wherever their company moved to - or the suburbs, to the new developments or old houses on farmland in surrounding towns like Hamden, Monroe, Fairfield, Easton, Newtown, Stratford. Also, quite a few moved to the northern, suburban part of Bridgeport. In time, these surrounding towns and areas developed their own economies independent of the city, with office parks, retail, light industry, corporate headquarters, multiplex theaters, churches, and even their own universities (eg Quinnipiac University and Fairfield University).
With this de-urbanization and the simultaneous deindustrialization of the northeast, the city core lost its tax base, its jobs, and its vitality. Crime and drugs became endemic with no-go zones for police. Cars, and government-built highways, made the flight that much easier. In response, the city did what all Blue Cities try to do: they raised taxes, applied for federal Great Society urban funds and programs, and sunk into corruption. Death spiral.
Very few old Connecticut cities escaped that. Stamford, CT for one, barely did escape, but Stamford (pop. 122,000) is really a NYC suburb now. It is alive because of huge tax breaks it offers to giant corporations, mainly banks poached from NY. No breaks for small businesses.
A few pics of houses in a pleasant part of leafy, suburban Fairfield, CT; once a semi-rural suburb of Bridgeport but now it's more economically-attached to NYC despite the 1 1/2 hour commuter train ride.
With wifi and plugs, a train ride doesn't need to be a waste of time.
Bridgeport last weekend, Manhattan this weekend. Yeah, we get around to all the hot spots.
We stopped in to see a (rarely-produced, and I think for good reason) off-B'way Chekhov play Ivanov. Impressive cast, as they always have there because even famous but serious film actors always long to do classic stage. Ethan Hawke writes novels, too, in his spare time and plays lead guitar in a rock band.
Mrs. BD observed that, had Prozac been available in Russia in 1885, the play would not have been written. (Chekhov, the son of a serf, worked as a physician his whole adult life, wrote his plays and stories as a sideline, and died young.)
My point is that I was seated next to two extremely cute and jovial 20-something gals, so naturally I had to chat with them a little. They were from Bulgaria, were working in New York. Student visas, now Green Cards. Where did they go to school? University of Bridgeport! Math majors, cute as buttons with shapely legs in black stockings which I refused to notice. They had a Russian gal friend with them who worked at the same famous investment fund. The Russki gal went to Univ. of Moscow, same as Chekhov, and had a PhD in Physics from MIT. All spoke the (accented) King's English, loved going to theater but were "sick of Broadway musicals" so were going around to all the off-Broadway they could. One every weekend. Wonderful - from Bulgaria to Bridgeport to Wall St. to off-Broadway theater. Only in America.
They found it amusing that I had been taking pics of Sandy's damage to Seaside Park just last weekend, right next to the sad Bridgeport campus.
Before the play, we had a little spare time to grab a bite so we found a counter space at The Oyster Bar, my favorite seafood place in NY. This venerable place in the bowels of Grand Central Station posts a daily list of the 25-30 varieties of oysters they have that day. (They always have Wellfleets.) Mrs. had their famous oyster stew but I had New England clam chowder of course. Pure fresh clam, no extraneous ingredients. The aspiring actor and actress wait staff work their butts off, as do the mostly-hispanic helpers. Busy place, always under-staffed I think.
I heard a beautiful Scots accent from the three gals seated at the counter on my right so I had to say something friendly (because, as everyone knows, NY is a cold, tough city and it is my mission to dispel that idea). They were a Mom and her two adult daughters touring the US for ten days with three teen daughters (who were not lunching with them as they had taken the shuttle to the West Side, then the Broadway line up to the Museum of Natural History - Scots are adventurous people). They all lived outside Edinburgh. I asked them how they found the Oyster Bar. Friends at home had enjoyed it, they told me. They were having Olympia oysters on the half shell, and mixed seafood salads. I've never met a dour Scot, but they do drink a bit so you can't tell. They were having champagne with lunch.
Heading north last night back up to Yankeeland on the train, the conductor was a Chinese gal with a slight accent. She was too busy for me to ask her where she was from. A gal Chinese conductor? The world has changed.
I love it all. As long as it is legal, and they study our Constitution seriously. The whole world wants to come here, especially at Christmastime. Not for freebies or the fun, but for the opportunities too. Our energetic legal immigrants are not interested in entitlements, but many of our home-grown voters seem to be.
21:25 "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
21:26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
21:27 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory.
21:28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
21:29 Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees;
21:30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.
21:31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.
21:32 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.
21:33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
21:34 "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly,
21:35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.
21:36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."
Pic above is a remnant of Bridgeport's grand experiments in public housing. I-95 in the background.
Bridgeport was the first city in New England to construct municipal housing for the poor. Father Panik Village was built in 1939 under the administration of long-time (1933-1957) Socialist Mayor Jasper McLevy. (Go figger that surname.)
"Slums" were bulldozed and replaced with modern buildings. In retrospect, how naive but well-intentioned it was to believe that Bridgeport's poor would be lifted up by government housing?
Gov. Wilbur L. Cross, speaking at the ground breaking, talked of an ''expensive and beautiful village'' that would ''take boys and girls off the streets into playgrounds.'' Governor Cross said that ''good housing opened to sunlight and fresh air and ample play areas are the best preventives we have against disease and crime.''
It's easy for us to understand, now, that orderly, pleasing people and environments are not made from the outside appearances, but from the inside. As Insty frequently points out, orderly and pleasant environments are produced by orderly and pleasant people: good environments are not causes, but results. Signs, not causes. NYC's Hell's Kitchen is now expensive and fashionable Chelsea because the slums were never cleared. One of my in-laws grew up with an urban outhouse and it did him no harm at all - or to any of his many siblings. He remembers helping his baby sister get to it during snowstorms.
At first, many happily settled into this heavily-subsidized housing with the modern luxuries of hot water and indoor toilets. Industrial jobs disappeared, but people stayed. Over time, like so many later government housing projects, Father Panik became a no-go zone for police, dominated by drug gangs - so much so that the project became famously emblematic of Bridgeport's decline.
"It used to be beautiful here. You could go downtown and leave your house unlocked and you wouldn't have to worry about anything," said True Hamilton, 72, who has lived in the project for 15 years.
"Now, we're scared to even come out of the door at night. And when we hear gunshots, we hit the floor," she said.
"I've been here so long. I treat the people here like family and they treat me like family. I won't know how to live out there," said Kathleen Vila, who moved into the project with her family in 1943, when she was 9 months old.
When the project opened in 1941, it was a clean, modern complex touted as a solution to slum housing. Built to replace shanties for factory workers, it housed nearly 5,000 people in 46 three-story buildings spread over 40 acres.
Vila's poignant sentence "I won't know how to live out there" captures one of the problems: insulation from the realities of the world can create something akin to the crippling effects of "institutionalization." Designed as a park-like area for the working poor - at first, it was highly diverse in population - but the 1935 introduction of AFDC, it is argued, gradually converted the project into a ghetto of the dependency subculture dominated by a new era of single mothers and their ungoverned kids.
The Village has now been demolished (I wonder where the residents went). This YouTube contains some photos and memories of the place:
I prefer a burger on white bread too. Buns are just too much bread. I like them half-burnt and crispy on the outside and raw in the middle, cooked over wood or charcoal. I agree that a burger requires an onion, either raw or otherwise. In general, though, I'm afraid I view good burgers as just an excuse to eat ketchup.
A related topic, far more important than the topic of good hamburgers, is the topic of the family meal. I believe in the family as the cornerstone of life, society and culture, and the family meal as a key component. I also believe that the wife should cook it on weekdays unless she's on a business trip, and the guy on weekends, preferably on the grill. Wife is supposed to be the nurturer, after all, and the structurer of family life.
Unfortunately, often I did not practice what I preach in that regard because of work demands - or perhaps because of my difficulty in structuring my time well. Also, because we so often go out for dinner on weekends with friends.
"Building a better you is the first step to building a better America."
On Wednesday, Zig Ziglar died at 86. Zig Ziglar's many books carried the motivational message of hard work and faith will out, and doing so to fill others' needs is the path to success. I remember my father reading Zig Ziglar when he started a business from scratch in the early 1960's, and so was I when I started out in the '70s. Ziglar was correct, I think, because he wedded hope with effort with common sense that didn't make or tolerate excuses. Ziglar kept writing books until last year. Here's an obit. Here's another obit.
She's a youthful 67 year-old now. The stars of our youths are grannies and grandpas. It's kinda strange. Thank goodness, we remain forever young, don't we all?
Pic: Sad fate of a Mac user who tried going the Windows extra mile
Before I get to the gist of the article, I thought I'd list out a few Windows 7 annoyances that you might like to take care of. All of these are on my Windows 7 setup page (most will also work for Vista):
— Getting rid of the "-Shortcut" tag on shortcut icons
— Changing the path to Internet Explorer's 'Favorites' so you won't lose them in case your system melts down
— Changing IE's tool bar icons back to 'Large'
— Activating 'Link to Email' in IE
— Disabling those incredibly annoying Task Bar pop-outs
— Cleaning up the 'New' menu
— Cleaning up the mouse's (right-button) Context menu
— Getting rid of icons on the Control Panel
Nothing earthshaking. What we call 'housework' in the geek biz.
As for Windows Update, if you have Microsoft Office Suite on your system, you definitely want to do this for security purposes. If not, do it anyway, just cuz. You never can tell what it'll find.
Normally, Windows Update just scans for actual Windows files, not programs. To do so requires a few clicks. Details are below the fold.
For better or worse, we in the US have had extensive government-controlled redistribution for generations in myriad forms. The real issue is not redistribution, it's how much, from whom, to whom, in what form? Further, it's a question of at what point forced, as opposed to voluntary, redistribution interferes with freedom, growth, initiative, and opportunity for all.
My favorite form of redistribution is the one I practice daily: I voluntarily buy things and services from other people. I buy a fish taco from a food truck in mid-town Manhattan, and I buy my work shirts at Brooks Brothers, made in the USA. I give generous tips, and big tips in December. It's a pleasure. During Christmastime I do most of my charitable giving too, while ramping up my redistribution of my "wealth" in exchange for material things to give to others.
Over the course of a year I redistribute a heck of a lot of my income. Last year, according to my Quicken, it was around 85% including taxes. Greedy Capitalist Pig that I am, I did fail to redistribute 15% of it to preserve for my future wants or needs to minimize the likelihood that I might have to humiliate myself to desire redistribution to myself someday. I put that filthy un-redistributed 15% in the solicitous care of Vanguard but, even to them, I am required to redistribute some small % of it.
Markets are geniuses at redistributing wealth in exchange for some sort of value-added.
Stashing away 15% was not easy to do, since my redistributed city, state, and federal taxes already approach 50% of my fairly-decent but far-from-wealthy salary this year. I do it because, while I enjoy my more immediate pleasures and indulgences - boat, dinners out, girl friends, beer, theater, travel - I have ambitious plans for my future too which will cost money to try to make happen. Sometimes I wonder how much wealth is redistributed from parents to kids, directly.
I am, and will be, one of the proud work horses pulling this big government wagon. No choice. Nobody has ever said "Thanks." I also help carry the free enterprise wagon, and am happy to be able to do so in whatever ways I can, within reason.
Pleasure Beach is a 3-mile barrier beach that runs from the outside of Bridgeport Harbor east to Stratford. Once known as Steeplechase Island when it was made into a beachside amusement park by the developer of Brooklyn's Coney Island. That's all gone now.
Parts of Pleasure Beach are owned by both towns. Arsonists burned the bridge in the 1990s, and it has not been rebuilt. There are abandoned summer shanties on it now - and Piping Plovers.
It probably did not do too well during Sandy. I'd propose leaving it as a nature preserve with a small summer boat landing for picnics.
By the end of this week, interested readers will have a good sense of this sad old town. I can think of few other once-major industrial cities which have risen and fallen similarly: Camden, Newark, and Paterson, NJ, Detroit, Providence, Springfield MA, Hartford, and so forth. But for wealth, variety of industries, and location, Bridgeport's rise and fall seems like a special story.
The recent Wal-Mart strike on Black Friday seems to have galvanized the labor movement. To what outcome, we shall see, but I suspect they are operating with some huge misconceptions.
As I drove to the train station, I heard an interview with one of the leaders in today's strike of fast-food workers here in NYC. He has a pleasing workers' story which he is spouting about 'living wages' and the need for workers at these companies to make trade-offs between a Metrocard and dinner. I'm all for 'living wages', but I think people have to remember when they take a job they need to determine if it's going to require them making tough choices. If I live so far from work that the cost of getting there deprives me of a meal, then maybe I need to find something closer to where I live.
This is part of our week-long series on Bridgeport, CT.
Pic is the long-departed University Club of Bridgeport (1905) on Golden St., once filled with mostly Yalies at lunchtime.
Why was Bridgeport, CT so prosperous from 1830-1950? It was a major manufacturing city with a large seaport and a railroad. Its prominence as a center for shipping, medicine, law, news and radio, and banking followed from those. From a population of 20,000 in 1820, it peaked in the 1940s - near or below where it is now. Rise and fall.
Industrialization and the presence of the railroad made Bridgeport an ideal manufacturing center producing Bridgeport milling machines, saddles, corsets, carriages, brass fittings, sewing machines, and ammunition. By 1930, Bridgeport was an industrial center with more than 500 factories and a thriving immigrant population. In the late 20th century Bridgeport remained a manufacturing center, producing electrical and transportation equipment, plastics, and machine tools. Like other urban centers in Connecticut, Bridgeport fared less well during the deindustrialization of the United States in the 1970s and 80s.
Remington Arms and Ammunition Co. Union Metallic Cartridge Co. General Electric Warner Brother's Corset Co (now Warnaco) The Bead Chain Manufacturing Co. Singer Sewing Machine Sikorsky Aircraft AVCO-Lycoming Pratt and Whitney The Frisbie Pie Co. Columbia Gramaphone Mfg. Co. Lake Submarine Boat Co. The Locomobile Company of America (electric cars, then gas-powered) Bullard Machine Tool Co. Bridgeport Brass Co. Bridgeport Bronze Co. The Liberty Bicycle Co. Harvey Hubbell Co. (Bridgeport's HH invented the electric socket - and the pull-chain light socket among other things)
and hundreds more. There were abundant jobs for everyone, from unskilled to the most highly-skilled.
Mead 
I think you'll find this somewhat interesting. Fellow bloggers, take note: the readership delivered a real message in a few of the responses.
Many agree that the simple chuck and sirloin burger at Louis' Lunch in New Haven
Pic is the 
Barro at Bloomberg 
