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 my view, Newt is unelectable, and not only because he comes across as an unusually unpleasant and undisciplined person. I don't know whether Mitt could win a national election, but I think the point is that he would help hold down potential losses in the House and Senate. He is not a rooted Conservative in the way that Obama is a rooted Leftist, it seems to me, and is the white bread candidate. Likeable, in my view. Not exciting, not overtly humorous, and not too quick on his feet. He'd be fine as President, I think, but not an Obama-style media celeb which seems to be what people enjoy these days, and not a Cut Government Down to Size Conservative.
Of course, holding the House and/or winning the Senate are more important than the White House, but we all tend to focus on the White House race because it's a sport, a soap opera, the Kentucky Derby. It gives us stuff to talk about.
Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe a calm, pragmatic, non-ideological CEO Mitt-type is what the country needs and wants now. However, the Conservative Repubs see, rightly or wrongly, the opportunity to crush a weak Obama and to win all the chips. Emotion can get in the way of mature, logical thinking. If Mitt wins nomination, it's because party members have voted for him in the primaries. There is no puppetmaster.
Who and where is that mystery person who can pleasantly and inspiringly articulate the Constitutional Conservative case (it ain't Sarah Palin)? Would it require a brokered convention to bring that person onto the field? That would make for some very good TV.
Otherwise, Moderate Mitt will be the party's figurehead.
We are considering putting up one of these Country Carpenters pre-fab post and beam barn/garages up at the top of the driveway, perhaps with a small apartment upstairs.
I was told they can be put up in a week, or less, once the slab is laid down. Installing a septic field would be an additional expense that I am not sure I want to take on right now. I think we will also need a well.
Every American needs a barn. Were I running for President, that would be my promise.
You can easily tell if someone is a true environmentalist, i.e. an advocate for a healthy planet – he is one who is happy to hear the news that the arctic ice content has stabilized. He is one who celebrates when the recent climate data show the alarmist’s predictions of catastrophic warming might be wrong. The denier, if he is an eco/political activist, always denies new data that show the planet may be healthy after all. The Media usually defines deniers as those who deny the scientist’s computer model predictions. However, denying the measured climate data meets a better definition in the world of science.
They claim, and I suspect it is true, that this is the best show on the evolution of Renaissance portraiture that will be put together in our lifetimes. Is it a niche topic? Heck, everything in life is a niche topic, but I would say that this is a show for those with more than a passing interest in the history of art. The re-secularization of the arts in the European Renaissance was a big deal, but attributing to that period the "rediscovery of the individual" goes overboard.
High points for me were a couple of Botticelli portraits, and the death mask of Lorenzo di Medici. What a cool dude he was.
A few random pics of the East Side of Manhattan today. The East Side streets are never teeming with people like the colorful West Side or downtown neighborhoods where everybody is young and there are tons of people pushing strollers: Here, people mostly have their doorman fetch a cab.
Human nature and the laws of physics, not technocratic liberalism, are still the best guides to the madness around us. Money borrowed has to be paid back or the debt eaten by someone, period. Poverty is defined by a want of material necessities, not by lacking the appurtenances that someone else better off enjoys. Gas and oil are miracle fuels and it is very hard to find alternate energies at comparable costs and reliability. And as a rule, the green class of environmental elites usually uses more fossil fuels per capita than do the muscular classes who mine and drill them out of the ground — and who do not jet, drive, or live in the comparable fashion of their critics. The content of our character alone matters; those who are not so confident in their own, usually demand that their tribal affiliations be essential and not incidental to their personas. Most accept that culture, not race matters, but it matters still more not to say that. Most of the political class has no interest in history; dogma is their creed. They assume that everyone (far less noble than themselves) in the past would have agreed with them, or now can be postfacto made to agree with them.
I am not saying that it is wrong in any way to help people in need. I am not saying that people who need help are bad. I am suggesting that the specific approach that has been favored by the political progressive left and the Democrats has serious, psychologically damaging consequences that lead to never-ending dependence, passivity, and continued poverty.
I recalled a piece I wrote in this column on January 29, 2009, just after Obama took office. It was headlined: “This is the sub-prime house that Barack Obama built”. As a rising young Chicago politician in 1995, no one campaigned more actively than Mr Obama for an amendment to the US Community Reinvestment Act, legally requiring banks to lend huge sums to millions of poor, mainly black Americans, guaranteed by the two giant mortgage associations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Loreena McKennitt put the lyrics of this poem by the Spanish mystic monk, poet, and theologian John of the Cross (1541-1592) to music. Some of our readers will love what she did with it. The Youtube blurb on McKennitt's piece:
"Dark Night of the Soul," like much of John's poetry, is based on "Song of Songs" from the Biblical Old Testament, and also on much of the romantic poetry and lyrics of Spanish popular balladry of that time, i.e., 16th century. The "secret stair" has less to do with a staircase in a monastery, and more to do with the popular theme of lovers meeting for a late night romantic tryst. In order for this to be possible, the young maiden of the song or poem would have to sneak out of the house, by the "secret stair." John uses this as a metaphor for the soul in prayer who, by means of contemplation, steals away from the world unnoticed, to meet in loving relationship with God. The dark night refers to the soul's search for God, beyond the confines of the human definitions we have put upon God."
John also wrote a treatise on his poem, of the same title. As I understand it, the "dark night" also refers to the period between death and resurrection and union with God, or between death and heaven, and as a metaphor for the condition of being out of touch with God and His love, seeking it in the dark. However, John of the Cross makes a sexy love poem of it too, in the tradition of Song of Songs (Solomon, the old rascal, had 700 wives and 300 concubines to keep him from straying too far from the harem, and out of trouble.)
Here's one translation from: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, revised edition (1991). (Copyright 1991 ICS Publications. Permission is hereby granted for any non-commercial use, if this copyright notice is included.)
1. One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings - ah, the sheer grace! - I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled.
2. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, - ah, the sheer grace! - in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled.
3. On that glad night, in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything, with no other light or guide than the one that burned in my heart.
4. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me - him I knew so well - there in a place where no one appeared.
5. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover.
6. Upon my flowering breast which I kept wholly for him alone, there he lay sleeping, and I caressing him there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
7. When the breeze blew from the turret, as I parted his hair, it wounded my neck with its gentle hand, suspending all my senses.
8. I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares
In case readers didn't take the time to read the WSJ opinion piece this week by prominent scientists, here it is:No Need to Panic About Global Warming -There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.
The brief video interview with the Princeton Physics prof there is interesting too. He says they would have had many signatures if they had taken the time.
These fellows are saying what we have been saying here for years, but they have more street cred than we have. Indeed, the story of the AGW hysteria is a fascinating story of the politicization of scientific inquiry coupled with governmental and academic greed for money and power. It is a cautionary tale.
Furthermore, I think many of us would welcome a little global warming. I think it would improve the planet, overall. It certainly did so in the past. Watch, over the next year, more scientific organizations and agencies find the courage to publicize these politically-incorrect views.
At Maggie's Farm, most or all of us are Environmentalists and Conservationists. We want land and water and air to be protected. We do not even approve of urban sprawl because we may need all of our farmlands someday and, as pleasant as urban hiking can be, we need the woods too. But at the same time, we like to live in reality.
"My idea was to bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare.”
That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave, Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure. O let me suffer (being at your beck) Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty, And patience tame to sufferance bide each check, Without accusing you of injury. Be where you list, your charter is so strong, That you your self may privilage your time To what you will, to you it doth belong, Your self to pardon of self-doing crime. I am to wait, though waiting so be hell, Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
A friend of mine recently joined a 3-day prison ministry in which our church participates. He returned home shaken by the entire experience.
6 million Americans sit in prisons today. I am certain that many of them are dangerous sociopaths who we would not want living next door, but many are non-violent (eg drug crimes, white collar crimes, etc) for which better penalties (eg fines) could be concocted. After all, it costs the taxpayer more per year than a year at Harvard to incarerate somebody.
America does have high rates of emprisonment. China doesn't, because they use the death penalty so liberally that they have medical vans on routes to stop by and harvest your fresh organs. In places like Saudi, they just cut your hand off if you steal. I suppose my feeling is that prison is ok for violent offenders, but not for the non-violent.
There are a few Italian pasta dishes that I am very fond of. One is the old reliable spaghetti - best made with spaghettini, I feel - with garlic and oil, with parsley on top. But the best is Pappardelle al Funghi.
The fungus, of course, has to be Porcini, either fresh if you can get it (and afford it), or dried. Dried is almost better, because you use the soaking water in the mix, and the flavor of the dried is more intense. I cannot find the exact recipe that I make on the internet, but it's something like this.
However, I don' know why it needs all that wine and chicken broth. Too soupy. Also, no Parmesan - no reason to add another flavor to distract from the earthy richness of the Porcini.
As you know, you never serve a sauce on top of pasta - you toss the pasta in the hot pan with the sauce. Photo below looks like it's made with fresh porcinis not cut quite into 2" pieces, and somebody forgot to garnish it with chopped parsley and some pepper. Otherwise...
Apple's executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their U.S. counterparts that "Made in the USA" is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.
The elites who denounce poverty despise the poor. Their every high-minded, right-thinking “poverty program” proves this detestation—from the bulldozing of vibrant tenement communities to the drug law policing policies that send poor kids to prison and rich kids to rehab to the humiliation of food stamps and free school lunches to the loathsome inner-city public schools where those free lunches are slopped onto cafeteria trays.
That's the good olde Beachcomber at Cahoon's Hollow, Wellfleet, last summer. Sippican told me he used to play bass there. It's an entirely pleasant joint with pretty good seafood and generous bartenders.
Building is an old rescue station, right on the ocean beach.
When we were kids, we played Army Man. In the evenings, we watched Vic Morrow keep his head in Combat, and Christopher George go dunebuggying in Rat Patrol. Entertainment like that was everywhere, and every retaining wall in every driveway had imaginary Guns of Navarone atop it the day after we saw the movie. We'd gather up all our military-ish toy swag, pick sides, and wander the neighborhood sneaking up on each other and arguing over who shot whom. Nothing we had shot any sort of projectile, so there was nothing to do but argue; but we all wanted to die and fall to the ground in histrionic ways and writhe around a bit, so the arguments were mostly about who was "throwing" the war too easily to suit the other side. There was a dirty little secret of all such suburban war games of the sixties. We all wanted to be the Germans.
The Germans were cool. Exotic. The Americans were just our dads in olive drab. German uniforms were like a circus outfit compared to a reform school tie. Germans had those nifty beer bottle hand grenades, tanks named after panthers and tigers instead of anonymous generals, and those awesome grease guns that went BBBRRRRRPPPP when you let them off the chain. And besides, if you were the Germans, you were expected to lose and die and writhe on the ground in your death throes over and over and have all the fun.
The actual American military seems to have understood that the Germans had all the sexy stuff, and worked hard to remind the American troops that outre weapons, gaudy uniforms with lots of lightning bolts and skulls, and Roman salutes don't win wars. The American army was boring compared to the German army. Boring like Joe Louis fighting Joel Grey would be, that is. Workmanlike. Here's an interesting example of the mundane but necessary propaganda that reminded American GIs that the boring stuff works just fine.
He is right that weight is a class and/or cultural thing to some degree. There is a sort of logic to it in an era of plentiful or unlimited cheap carbohydrates in the Western world. Being heavy no longer displays prosperity, while being trim and fit shows that you have the ability to delay gratification for more important goals, such as being more vigorous and sexy, and less of a couch potato.
However, unlike Lefties, I don't care what other people chose to be or what they eat. From Knish,
Social medicine politicizes food consumption and a globalized economy politicizes food production. And the politicized American plate has less on it and at a higher price. While the left obsessively pursues its mission of destroying fast food in the name of lowering social medicine costs and being fairer to farmers, what they are truly accomplishing is to take affordable and filling food off the shelves, as they have done with countless other products that they have targeted.
As lefty pols go, in the last photo I saw, Al Gore looked like a fattie, living off the fat of the land. Last photo I saw, Obama looked semi-anorectic for a middle-aged man-boy. Clinton got fat, had a heart attack, and then got scrawny and ill-looking living on arugula salad.
Here is a brief history: The Real Skinny: Expert Traces America's Thin Obsession. What that brief post misses is that, today, in our culture, trim and fit is sexy and appealing to both men and women. In a way, it seems to say that you have not given up on life, or at least that you have not given up on caring about your body. In fact, "studies show" that being trim and fit helps you get a job, or keep one.
I love a Big Mac once in a while. Who doesn't? A Big Mac and Fries is around 1000 calories. To walk that off takes 4-5 hours of vigorous walking, at least. About 3 hours on the elliptical.
More on Charles Murray on Fishtown and Belmont, from Kay Hymowitz:
Most disastrous for Fishtown residents has been the collapse of the family, which Murray believes is now “approaching a point of no return.” For a while after the 1960s, the working class hung on to its traditional ways. That changed dramatically by the 1990s. Today, under 50 percent of Fishtown 30- to 49-year-olds are married; in Belmont, the number is 84 percent. About a third of Fishtowners of that age are divorced, compared with 10 percent of Belmonters. Murray estimates that 45 percent of Fishtown babies are born to unmarried mothers, versus 6 to 8 percent of those in Belmont.
And so it follows: Fishtown kids are far less likely to be living with their two biological parents. One survey of mothers who turned 40 in the late nineties and early 2000s suggests the number to be only about 30 percent in Fishtown. In Belmont? Ninety percent—yes, ninety—were living with both mother and father. Many experts would define the cause as a dearth of “marriageable” men (see above). The causation goes the other way as well. Men who don’t marry don’t work—or at least, they work less hard. Severed from family life, they don’t attach themselves to community organizations, including churches, and in greatly disproportionate numbers they engage in antisocial, even criminal, behavior.
For all their degrees, the upper class in Belmont is pretty ignorant about what’s happening in places like Fishtown.
I respect Murray a great deal, but I think he juxtaposes two extremes. America is filled with middle-class towns and middle-class neighborhoods which are neither Fishtowns nor Belmonts but which are having a tough time in the current economy. While the welfare state has enabled much of the deterioration of civilized culture in Fishtown, the lack of unskilled jobs (largely taken by new immigrants who are grateful for any work at any pay) and semi-skilled jobs (overseas) probably plays a role in that too. It takes a lot of initiative to take charge of one's life nowadays, regardless of one's advantages or lack thereof.
Where are the jobs for a guy who is happy to run a lathe or machine tool all day at a steady job, then go home to his cozy family? Those jobs no longer exist in Pittsfield or Bridgeport, and nothing will bring them back. It is a tragedy, I think, of the changes.
The "post" road meant a mail road. It now has different names as it travels through different towns, but locals call it "the Boston Post Road" or "the Post Road" still. Its original name was The King's Highway. That old road, based on an Indian trail. has been part of my life, on and off, forever. In fact, when I was a kid, the old trolley tracks still stuck through the asphalt creating a bike challenge.
Image of the Boston Post Rd in the late 1600s in Pelham, NY, from this site.
Spike Lee: The New Bill Cosby?
Old ad via
Loreena McKennitt
Image on right via 
The Knishman nails the zeitgeist here: 