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.
Gaura lindheimeri is a new plant for me. This one is nicknamed "Whirling Butterflies."
These are perennials (depending on winter temperatures), hybrids of a North American wildflower. Drought tolerant, prefers full sun, blooms all summer. Perfect border plant. They come in white or pink.
The only thing in life more charming than a well-structured and well-designed perennial border is a well-structured, well-designed girl.
Until we manage to uncouple higher education from the job market, we are going to persist in misunderstanding education’s true end. It may well be that in the past—i.e., in a debt-based economy incapable of imagining how top-heavy things eventually fall over—a college degree has been a stepping stone to the middle class, but those days are over. An economy that can’t help a college graduate retire an enormous debt is not going to look upon a college degree as a stepping stone to the middle class. Colleges, obviously, will continue to look thus upon the degree (how they will wield the mighty frame of education, how build, unbuild, contrive to save tuition costs), but this is just one more thing among many about which they will be wrong.
And although it is true that we shouldn’t make higher education a luxury, it is truer still that we shouldn’t make it a commodity. When it once again becomes difficult, it will be neither a luxury nor a commodity. Making it so “every American should be able to afford it” is no different from making it so every American can do it, which is the same thing as rendering it meaningless.
This year's Coming Attractions will include massive and distorted attacks on Mitt Romney's successful business career.
Promising young businesses need funding, and frail tired businesses must be re-built or sold for salvage. Is there a way to talk, politically, about venture capital and business competition in a way that people can relate to? I suppose buggy-whip companies and blacksmiths are a place to start.
The 2012 presidential race will be, in part, a showdown between two different models of economic growth. President Barack Obama and his Democratic administration will defend the once-discredited and now-resurgent theory that government must act as the economy’s “tutor” and use public funds to stimulate it. The Republican nominee, presumably Mitt Romney, will advance the free-market argument that the main source of new growth is the innovative energy of American entrepreneurs and that government needs to get out of the way.
The warblers are on the move up from South and Central America, and pass through hearabouts in May, on their way north to breed as soon as the buds begin to pop on the trees and the bugs wake up. Girls might like diamonds but the warblers are God's real living jewels.
The Yellow is the yellowest, and maybe most abundant warbler, with a distinctive "sweet sweeet sweet" call. Found throughout the US during migration. They like to be near wet areas - willows, etc., but they will be everywhere soon.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear – From Frank Herbert’s Dune (h/t Classical Values)
During the last week, we have seen the president support three political positions: gay marriage, a raise in the minimum wage, and a cut in the interest rate on loans to college students. These issues have one thing in common: The president’s supporters claim that those who oppose gay marriage, oppose a high minimum wage, and oppose the lowering of interest rates on college student loans must really hate gays, hate the poor, and oppose education. If you don’t favor President Obama’s programs, you hate the groups targeted by the programs. Thus, we have no serious debate on the merits of either side of these issues, and that is unhealthy.
15:9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.
15:10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
15:11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
15:13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
15:16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
15:17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
The campaign contour is pretty clear: The Obama reelection team will not make the case for the advantages and popularity of Obamacare, for the Chuian advantages of $4-a-gallon gas, for the dynamism of a 1.7 percent GDP growth rate, for the stimulatory effects of adding $5 trillion in new debt, or for why 8 percent unemployment does not qualify under the old rubric of a “jobless recovery.” Instead we are going to see a) mostly the spike-the-football sloganeering about Osama bin Laden and adherence to the Bush-Petraeus timetable in leaving Iraq, b) the supposed racism (Trayvon Martin–style), sexism (“war on women”) and homophobia of the Right, and c) personal attacks on Romney’s past.
Clora come view my Soul, and tell Whether I have contriv'd it well. Now all its several lodgings lye Compos'd into one Gallery; And the great Arras-hangings, made Of various Faces, by are laid; That, for all furniture, you'l find Only your Picture in my Mind.
Here Thou art painted in the Dress Of an Inhumane Murtheress; Examining upon our Hearts Thy fertile Shop of cruel Arts: Engines more keen than ever yet Adorned Tyrants Cabinet; Of which the most tormenting are Black Eyes, red Lips, and curled Hair.
But, on the other side, th' art drawn Like to Aurora in the Dawn; When in the East she slumb'ring lyes, And stretches out her milky Thighs; While all the morning Quire does sing, And Mamma falls, and Roses spring; And, at thy Feet, the wooing Doves Sit perfecting their harmless Loves.
Like an Enchantress here thou show'st, Vexing thy restless Lover's Ghost; And, by a Light obscure, dost rave Over his Entrails, in the Cave; Divining thence, with horrid Care, How long thou shalt continue fair; And (when inform'd) them throw'st away, To be the greedy Vultur's prey.
But, against that, thou sit'st a float Like Venus in her pearly Boat. The Halcyons, calming all that's nigh, Betwixt the Air and Water fly. Or, if some rowling Wave appears, A Mass of Ambergris it bears. Nor blows more Wind than what may well Convoy the Perfume to the Smell.
These Pictures and a thousand more, Of Thee, my Gallery dost store; In all the Forms thou can'st invent Either to please me, or torment: For thou alone to people me, Art grown a num'rous Colony; And a Collection choicer far Then or White-hall's, or Mantua's were.
But, of these Pictures and the rest, That at the Entrance likes me best: Where the same Posture, and the Look Remains, with which I first was took. A tender Shepherdess, whose Hair Hangs loosely playing in the Air, Transplanting Flow'rs from the green Hill, To crown her Head, and Bosome fill.
A perfect poem? Marvell is grouped with the English metaphysical poets, along with John Donne, George Herbert, and others. A politician and diplomat, Marvell was a close associate of Milton and the Cromwell family.
An internal investigation at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has uncovered academic fraud involving the department of African and Afro-American Studies
So many issues come up in the course of a presidential term and so much of what happens can’t be predicted in advance that it makes a certain amount of sense to vote for the person rather than the platform.
But whether or not this is a smart way to vote, in the real world it is the way many Americans do vote, and Mitt Romney has to figure out how he can make a stronger personal impression on undecided voters.
It isn’t an easy problem to solve. One senses that Romney is more George H. W. Bush than Bill Clinton; he comes from a world where privacy is valued and where sharing can seem like showing off.
Disgusting. Even more craven is Ms. McMillen’s concluding apology “for the distress these incidents have caused our readers.” Are the Chronicle’s readers really such delicate plants? Well, as I say, almost all of them are academics, so the answer is undoubtedly Yes.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has long been receding into semi-senescent irrelevance. This latest episode underscores its moral bankruptcy as well. What a pathetic showing.
All those "distressed" academics know that what Riley wrote is accurate. They protest too much. However, academia has rules about what you may and may not say in public.
Interestingly, the now-racist-branded Riley is married to a black guy.
(Etymology of "sop": O.E. sopp- "bread soaked in some liquid," (in soppcuppe "cup into which sops are put"), from P.Gmc. *suppo, related to O.E. verb suppan (see sup (2)), probably reinforced by O.Fr. soupe (see soup (n.)). Meaning "something given to appease" is from 1660s, an allusion to the sop given by the Sibyl to Cerberus in the "Aeneid.")
Gwynnie emails me that he saw a pair of these this morning.
A colorful, not uncommon finch-like, sparrow-sized bird often seen in the Eastern US during migration - which is right now. During breeding season, the male is dramatically-pigmented but, depending on the light, they can appear black.
Are jeans 
Fighter plane from World War II found
The Gallery
On the
Gwynnie emails me that he saw a pair of these this morning.