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.
If you saw a dozen al-Qaeda terrorists approaching your location, who would you rather have by your side? A squad of lawyers like me (even with my sidearm and M4 that I carried downrange) or one of Fox Troop (2/3 ACR)’s Bradley Fighting Vehicles, chain gun at the ready?
Note the surrealism of the European unrest: who are the “they” who “stole” the money that is now no longer there to fund socialism? Did not the socialists at last get what they wanted? The “they” who used to fund it by expanding the economy disappeared a long time ago and now are in the graveyards of Europe.
Don't Know Much About History- The popular historian David McCullough says textbooks have become 'so politically correct as to be comic.' Meanwhile, the likes of Thomas Edison get little attention.
Interestingly, NYC's Broadway was an old Lenape Indian trail into the Bronx and Westchester, later extended by the Dutch to run up to the Dutch settlement of Albany (the current Rte. 9).
We now call the North River the Hudson River. The road along the wall is Wall St. That canal, now filled in, is Broad St. Another Dutch canal further uptown, long filled in, is now Canal St.
Father's Day dinner last night with the in-laws at the Red Hat restaurant in the charming riverfront village of Irvington, NY (pop 6000). Was the town named after Washington Irving? Yes. Re-named after its distinguished resident. In fact, the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow is just north of there.
Now mainly a bedroom town, it once housed the Lord and Burnham Co. which built greenhouses and conservatories, including those of the NY Botanical Gardens. In fact, Red Hat is housed in the back of one of the old Lord and Burnham buildings. (Mrs. BD knows Irvington as the location of the home office and shop of Eileen Fisher.)
If you look south from the water's edge, you can see Manhattan 20 miles in the distance. My pic, looking north up the Hudson, has the Tappan Zee bridge. Gal in the foreground looks like Botticelli's niece - angelic, but with a sadness.
Mrs. BD cannot stop talking about this week's WAFA show in Boston. The exhibits blew her mind - and she knows about these things.
For flower art, the WAFA is the World Soccer competition. Competitive sculpture, really, but ephemeral. Four days, then it's all in dumpsters.
She said New Zealand, Pakistan, Japan, Russia, and South Africa were well-represented by designers. Even a highly-talented mother-daughter team from Zimbabwe.
Mrs. BD and her pals had nice chats with an exhibitor from Wales and one from Pakistan. They also chatted with a priest from Northern Ireland who is a famous designer, and a guy from Russia who won his division, who was there with his blond bombshell girlfriend.
I would post pics but Mrs. BD lost her iPhone right before she went. Some pics are here.
Today is the last day of the show, and it probably won't be scheduled back in the US for a decade or more. People come to the WAFA events from all over the world, and filled up Boston's hotels.
This world is full of so many interesting things to see and do that it is a wonder that anybody finds time to look at the internet.
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
"If you have a Dad who didn’t beat or molest you, didn’t embezzle money from you or your family, and kept his whoring enough on the down-low that he has never had to address it in a press conference, you better be getting that man a present.
Dads who manage to avoid all of the things mentioned in the previous paragraph are hard to find, and deserving of praise."
It's a sad and difficult thing to grow up without a father.
My rather good post about our visit to Norcia showed a road sign to Cascia. We did not visit Cascia, but friendly folks at our Abbazia hotel later informed us that St. Rita is the saint of hopeless causes.
I thought to myself, Hmmm. Maybe a saint for Maggie's Farm, if her soul is willing.
Now back to farm work, then we're going for special celeb dinner with my Dad-in-law. Tomorrow, lunch with my own Dad and the entire family, while in-laws go to celebrate their cousin's retirement after 27 years as a beloved parish priest in Pennsylvania.
This famous medieval Latin university drinking song, also known as On The Brevity of Life, is an example of Goliardic verse, of which Carmina Burana is the best known example.
The Latin and English words are below the fold - but there's a big gap first which I cannot fix.
Why people stand for a student drinking song is beyond me.
If you are not yet aware of Playing For Change, which brings local international musicians and singers into a mix of favorites, here's a recent addition to its playlist. We earlier brought you Playing For Change's amazing work. Since, Playing For Change has continued to produce wonderful music. You can (I do) get lost for hours and return hours in Playing For Change's playlist on Youtube.
Norcia is the pork capital of Italy - pig, and the cinghiale which live in the surrounding hills and mountains. Sausages, salamis, proscuitto, and all other preserved meats. In the world of supermarkets, we forget how important tasty preserved meats were in the old days.
The food in Norcia is so famous that buses bring Romans up for the day for lunch and food shopping. From what I saw, they surely sleep on the way back to Roma because these Italians are serious about food, wine, - and food volume. Vocal volume, also. (As our Chinese waitress in Bavegna noted, Italians don't talk - they shout. Really, not always.)
Beside meat, they have a specialty in the incredible wild (and wildly expensive) local Black Truffle - tartufo negro, the "diamond of the kitchen" - and Pecorino cheese too - one of the best hard cheeses in the world, made from sheep milk.
Americans tend not to enjoy eating the wild boar very much, but in Italy they do wonders with it. We need to learn from the Italians, since we have such a problem with them. (However, it is illegal to market wild game in the US.)
I enjoyed visiting this village in the mountains, in the Valnerina, very much. It's not a tourist town, it's more like a market town but some savvy tourists stop by to get the local flavor - and to eat some fine flavors.
The real reason we went there was because of Mrs. BD's link to the monks of Norcia, but there turned out to be many reasons to go there.
Italian courtship on church steps. After seeing this pic, Mrs. BD (half Italian) wondered what these gals would turn into over time, after they get the stereotypically easily-led Italian guys off the church steps and up to the altar.
Shops show off their photos of their cinghiale hunters, on the walls. Head shots, in both senses of the term:
More fun Norcia pics and comments below the fold -
Mrs. BD reminds you, if near Boston, to visit the spectacular WAFA Flower Show this week. Over 600 flower creations from people all over the world, with probably 30,000 visitors also from all over the world. First time this has been held in the US.
Why 70% Tax Rates Won't Work - Memo to Robert Reich: The income tax brought in less revenue when the highest rate was 70% to 91% than it did when the highest rate was 28%.
I believe that, if you haven't gotten what you need to become an effective and self-motivated learner in high school, you never will. School is spoon-feeding, but real education is picking up the spoon yourself.
The test of whether someone has deserved a higher education is afterwards: Do they continue with scholarly or self-educational pursuits, or do they rest on their paper laurels? Most people could learn to do their jobs through apprenticeships if a job is what they are after, and save the college cost. Most jobs are not rocket science, but most jobs expect ongoing learning of some sort, on one's own.
I also believe that all education is self-education, and that a degree is an expensive piece of paper. See "I got my education at the New York Public Library," (which wonderful library, a source of learning for immigrants and scholars alike, had its 100th Aniversary last month).
We easily forget that almost none of the remarkable achievers and contributors in human history ever had higher education, or more than elementary formal education, and that that continues to be true up through the present.
America's "education system" is SNAFU, and "college education" is a racket designed to support Big Beer.
He had at first strongly opposed such amendments, arguing that the Constitution, by its precise enumeration of the federal government’s strictly limited powers, makes clear that any power not on that short list remains off-limits. A bill of rights would reverse the emphasis, he feared, opening the way to an enlargement of federal prerogative and a shrinking of the powers reserved to the states and the people. “If an enumeration be made of our rights,” he argued in the June 1788 Virginia ratifying convention, “will it not be implied, that every thing omitted, is given to the general government?”
I think he was right, but he ended up flip-flopping due to political pressure.
Norcia is the birthplace of St. Benedict, born 480. I'll post some of my pics of the town of Norcia, the pork capital of Italy, later. First just a plug for the Monks of Norcia, who Mrs. BD supports.
This group of young Benedictines, many of whom are Americans, were looking for a monastic home. The Vatican responded that the monastery attached to the Church of St. Benedict in Norcia was available. How could they not accept that offer?
They say of themselves:
We pray the full monastic Office as laid out in the Rule (my link). We observe the monastic fast and we have retained the patrimony of Gregorian chant. In addition, the Holy See has entrusted us with the special apostolate of celebrating the Eucharist in both forms (in utroque usu), that is, the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. We do all kinds of work (manual, clerical and intellectual) including some limited apostolic work. Monastic formation in Norcia focuses heavily on the interior life: conversion, self-knowledge, the rooting out of vices and the acquiring of virtues – all this to create the necessary conditions for contemplative prayer.
We are a young international community, eager to love and serve Our Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart.
We chatted with a couple of them, and Mrs. BD attended their Vespers service in the crypt of the church. I might have joined her, but I don't really get the Roman Catholic routine and feel more like a lurker or a sight-seer instead of a participant when I, as a Protestant, attend, so I don't always feel that it's right.
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