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.
The people in the media face in toward their masters, rather than looking out over the wall at the rest of us. For those involved in dissident politics, this is useful as it makes it more difficult for the people in charge to respond to the threat.
On my fifth day, I find that they are getting harder to do, not easier. I think that is the necessary stress. My first set of 15 is difficult, second set of 15 easier, and the remaining sets of ten become more challenging. I am only up to 80/day, will get to 100 on Monday. My sets are spread out over hours.
If over age 20, I wonder whether it might make more sense to put in a day of push-up rest every few days for recovery. My goal of course is 100/day, but more specifically 50 in a row. I don't need to do 100 in a row.
Most yawn that Mark Zuckerberg and Pope Francis have given one too many sanctimonious rants that project their own hypocrisies. And one too many sober and judicious ex-diplomats (of the sort whose mellifluous prior appeasement led to a thermonuclear North Korea) bores us with warnings about Trump’s “incendiary rhetoric.” Apparently in 2016, the deplorables and irredeemables struck back. Donald J. Trump symbolically served as a radiologically hot CAT scan that revealed long-festering inner metastases. Next, as deadly chemotherapy, he unpleasantly saturated the patient until the cancers within slowly began to fester and shrink — even as the convalescent resented the harsh therapy as much as he did the symptoms of the disease.
Here is a sure fire test for a progressive. If given a choice between two worlds:
A capitalist society where the overall levels of wealth and technology continue to increase, though in a pattern that is dynamic, chaotic, generally unpredictable, and whose rewards are unevenly distributed, or...
A "progressive" society where everyone is poorer, but income is generally more evenly distributed. In this society, jobs and pay and industries change only very slowly, and people have good assurances that they will continue to have what they have today, with little downside but also with very little upside.
What They Promised: Smoking Gun Proof of Trump-Russia Collusion What They Walked That Back To: Russia Bought Some FaceBook Ads What It Is Now: Russian Ads Promoted Black Lives Matter
I don't think it'll work out well. TV watching is an indulgence, maybe even a vice if indulged excessively, and people do it partly because they justify it as imparting some secondary benefits -- having a shared social vocabulary, feeling united with other fans, feeling that watching football on Sunday is a shared civic ritual celebrating some worthwhile aspects of the American secular religion.
Take away that goodwill, and rely only on the eleven total minutes of actual football action during a four or four and a half hour game -- and, well.
The bottom line is that the black family was stronger the first 100 years after slavery than during what will be the second 100 years.
At one time, almost all black families were poor, regardless of whether one or both parents were present. Today roughly 30 percent of blacks are poor.
However, two-parent black families are rarely poor. Only 8 percent of black married-couple families live in poverty. Among black families in which both the husband and wife work full time, the poverty rate is under 5 percent. Poverty in black families headed by single women is 37 percent.
Simple question: Are Asians part of white supremacy, or are Asians another minority oppressed by whites? (See Justice Harlan above.) And if they are an oppressed minority, shouldn’t Asians receive affirmative action preferences?
“When our elites attack our national symbols as if they are worthless and loathesome, something important, something monumental has changed here. If the people who benefited most from America despise it–and increasingly they do–where does that leave the rest of us?”
I can’t tell you how many times readers and potential/actual authors have told me they fear loss of job and career damage if they express non-liberal opinions at work or in a way that people at work could find out. There is a reign of terror ongoing in this country, but it’s not from the government, it’s from social-media-empowered leftists who seek to impose the most intrusive political litmus tests in every aspect of our lives.
The most revealing aspect of the culture war is not that the professional entertainment industries are uniformly and aggressively liberal, but that they have pushed politics into every aspect of our lives. You will be made to care in the classroom and now, on the sports field.
The result, for me, is a withdrawal from much of professional culture.
Does anybody want to join me? I am doing this beginning today, regardless of the rest of my exercise routine.
The idea is to do 100 daily, whether it's 1 or 5 or 10 or 20+ at a time. Just do 100 total with proper form (down low, back and legs like a plank and no dropping your butt). Obviously this is not for those fitter folks who can just get down and do 100 in a row without breaking a sweat. I'll begin with ten sets of ten and try to up the reps in each set each day with a goal of two sets of 50. Women can either do Pushups for women, or the basic version. Supposedly it can tighten gals' boobs, but don't ask me. I just do not want to develop Man-Boobs.
Men can not do Pushups for Women, of course. That would be shameful (although I confess I was forced to, recently. I can't do 50 man pushups in a row - yet).
100 is not a lot for 24 hours, and over time it gets more efficient, more at a time. Probably not a bad idea for those who never do pushups to begin with 30 for the first day, then 50 the next day, then 70, then 100.
Warning: The next Maggie's 30-day challenge in November will be similar, but for Burpees. We want to keep our readers alive. We need every one of our readers to keep getting the big bucks from Dunkin Donuts and Bob Dylan.
It is strange, but nobody pays money to watch athletes display their politics - whatever they are. I still don't know what all this is about other than another Trumpian circus. Pres. Trump is a hit new TV reality show with a crazy new theme each week for people to talk about. Meanwhile, behind the stage, his admin is doing lots of things.
Oppressed Multi-Millionaire Stevie Wonder Takes a Knee
“Reunite what country?” Recall, Indo-China was not one country, or even three countries, under the French. It was administered as six regions (Laos, Cambodia, Tonkin, Annam, Cochin China and the Crown Dominion Lands). Vietnam was not one country before the French. In the previous millennium it was united for perhaps 30 years. Most of this unification refers to unifying the area north of the Red River with that of the area south of the Red River—all of that territory being within what became known as North Vietnam. It does not refer to the area from the border with China in the north to the tip of the Ca Mau peninsula in the south or west to the mountain border areas with Cambodia and Laos. That had never been one country. There was nothing to reunify. This is not analogous to the American Civil War. This was not a nation that was split by colonialism, by war or by agreement.
20:1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
20:2 After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.
20:3 When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace;
20:4 and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.
20:5 When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same.
20:6 And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?'
20:7 They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.'
20:8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.'
20:9 When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.
20:10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.
20:11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner,
20:12 saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'
20:13 But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
20:14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.
20:15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
20:16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
Last week we mentioned the classic upper body calis; today the lower. As always, I mention that the distinction between cardio and calis can sometimes be arbitrary because of the overlap. Also, a reminder that calis don't really make you much stronger, just fitter and more athletic.
The essential two are:
Body-weight Squats
Walking Lunges
They seem simple, but must be done with correct form and enough reps to matter. Youtube videos are good for that instruction. Both of the above can be made more cardio- and plyometrically-demanding with squat-jumps and jumping lunges, or more strength-building by adding hand weights.
The other mostly-lower body calis I do weekly are Jumping Burpees, Low Box Jumps, Mountain Climbers, High Step and Press, and Kettlebell Swings. All of the latter are also, at least for me, intense cardio exercises that I count as HIIT Cardio. I do calis in rotations of 3 or 4 of them and do my best to minimize breathing breaks. I mix in some planks, jump rope, etc.
Exercise Tip: Do your calis the days after weights, not the days before weights. That is, if you are over age 40. Calis do not technically require any recovery time, but at some point I think best to put in a cardio day between calis and weights.
I did think about Johnny Reb as some poor farmer's son valiantly taking up arms to fight a northern invasion of his homeland. Not romanticizing it entirely, just a bit, but I hate, hate, hate that avoidable war.
... my response to a statue you don't approve of is "So put up your own statue." Or even more to the point "Go do something that is worthy of commemoration in that way. No one is stopping you, with your own mixed bag of moral history, from going and doing something heroic or laudable."
These two upper-body calisthenics are classics for good reason - they are simple, and efficient by stressing many muscle groups. These are mainly guy exercises, because males have greater, or greater potential, upper body strength and power than most women (so women commonly do assisted pull-ups and knee push-ups. But women have boobs, so there's that...).
I've been focusing on Push-ups lately because our Saturday morning class expects 200 of them in the course of an exercise session (for the guys and the gals). That's a lot, for me anyway, with or without my shoulder's damn traumatic arthritis. "Push-ups are basic strength-building total body exercises that strengthen the upper body and improve the core strength. Several muscle groups in the chest, arms, shoulder, triceps, back, and neck work simultaneously during a push-up." Yes, you tense your core (belly and back) like a board, but you have to breathe too. Little puffs.
Here's a simple challenge program to get you to 60 pushups in one go - or at least in one day. A healthy male under age 75 or 80 can quickly get to 50 pushups in a row, and work up from there if they want. Lots of guys aim to do 100 in a row. Why not 99?
Next, inclined pull-ups, aka inverted rows. These are mainly back, but secondarily shoulder and arm stressors (as are dumbell rows). Like regular pull-ups, you can do these overhand or underhand. I do them with TRX straps and alternate overhand and underhand.
RegularPull-ups are primarily back muscle exercises (you do not pull with your arms - you thrust your elbows down with your back muscles). Chin-ups (palms facing you) engage more arm strength. Unassisted pullups are difficult for most middle-aged men, and for most women. Some tips for working up to your first pull-up.
If a guy can do 10 pull-ups, he's got darn good upper body fitness. I can't - but I could when I was 16. I will try but I doubt I will get to ten again. I saw a middle-aged gal do three sets of ten (unassisted) last week. She was a fit lady, no bulging muscles at all and only slight kipping.
The thing about exercises with multiple muscle groups is that the weak link fails first. Thus, to make your back work hard with pull-ups, you need to be able to keep a hold on to the darn bar with your forearms. Many humans are like T-Rex: puny arms, strong thighs.
Ikea’s stuff is tough to assemble,
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4 Ancient prayers
Did Fashion Week Just 
These two upper-body calisthenics are classics for good reason - they are simple, and efficient by stressing many muscle groups. These are mainly guy exercises, because males have greater, or greater potential, upper body strength and power than most women (so women commonly do assisted pull-ups and knee push-ups. But women have boobs, so there's that...).