Maggie's Farm

Thanks to Gerard for forwarding this:

Bob Dylan's Lost 1970 Gem 'Pretty Saro'

Holistic admissions policies at Berkeley

Born this way? Transsexuals

Bad Weather Reducing Chevy Volt Reduced By $5,000

Light-Rail to Nowhere: Honolulu, Hawaii's Train Boondoggle

Obamacare: Aetna Pulls Out of Maryland, Connecticut

Busybody Politics

John King: Why Benghazi matters

Benghazi: Is the Alleged CIA Scandal Real?

Yep, This Sounds Like Classic Workplace Violence to Me…

National Review Misses Most Obvious Point in Taking on "Prison/Industrial Complex"

Organizing for Action pitches help for Democrats

The need for more direct action against the GOP establishment

Another ‘Why Won’t Those Horrible Republicans Learn from Romney and Move to the Middle Already?’ Media Story

Daily Kos not too pleased with Obamacare

He's back to being Don again

Replica of Paris in China becomes ghost town

A new t-shirt easily found up in Yankeeland. I told my wife this is what I want for my birthday, so we got me one. It's all I want for my birthday. I'll wear it in Italy, with my straw Stetson, red shorts, and white sneakers, and nobody will dare bother me. Not even the Somali scum.

$12.95. She got off easy, except for the cost of the Italy trip.

A Red Hunting Poodle.

I have one. Don't you? Smarter than humans.

The 1 percent ruined love: Marriage is for the rich

How Bad Is the Ammo Shortage? This Bad

The IRS Attack on Political Speech

The Indebted States of America - States and localities owe far, far more than their citizens know.

Global Warming as Faith

Note to Congress: Lock Down The NSA’s Data

Federal 'nudge squad' led by 20-something wunderkind gears up to change Americans' behaviors – for our own good

Where Americans want to live these days

Why are homicide laws different for women & men?

Just Spread Detroit's Failure, Why Don't Ya?

Indians vs. Moonbats

Here's Why I Think Jeff Bezos Bought The Washington Post

Not from The Onion: The UK does biofuel - with American trees!

Thanks to all for keeping the "content" flowing.

I am certain that this sign was not there when Thoreau hiked the beautiful beach from Chatham to P'town. BTW, the alcohol rule is ignored and unenforced. There is plenty of brew in those beach coolers.

Note how "crowded" this ocean beach is.

While helping my brother clean out my parents' garage, going through shelves of tools, boxes of drill bits, old hinges, misc loose nails and screws, washers, screw-drivers, hand-drills, boxes of what-nots, etc, along with more garden tools than you can imagine even existed, I came across this old cedar cigar box full of mixed nails.

I know where that box of nails came from. That came from my grandfather's garage. My Mom's Dad. He kept all categories of little things in cigar boxes. He smoked in his office in town of course, but outdoors too, even while scything hay or on horseback, but stuck with cigarettes indoors so as not to offend the womenfolk. Pall Malls. Still delicious cigarettes.

So what about L. Osterweis? Well, he made cigars in New Haven, CT, with "South American" (Cuban probably) filler and Connecticut wrappers. Cigar people know that Connecticut still grows the best wrapper tobacco in the world.

The Osterweis company sold off their assets in 1954. From this Yale snippet, it seems that the Osterweis family did pretty well in the tobacco biz for a couple of generations. Even sent a kid or two to Yale.

Photo of Semipalmated Sandpipers from Being a sandpiper - Animals have thoughts, feelings and personality. Why have we taken so long to catch up with animal consciousness?

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23

1:2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

1:12 I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem,

1:13 applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with.

1:14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

2:18 I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me

2:19 --and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

2:20 So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun,

2:21 because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

2:22 What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun?

2:23 For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

It seems to make me feel better to post and write about death and house clean-out, so I will. I guess it's a slice of life up here in Yankeeland.

Here's a small stack of the number of books I retrieved from Dad's bookshelves. This might keep me busy until Thanksgiving or Christmas. I read Landscape and Memory once, when it first came out, but it wouldn't hurt me to read it again.

I have always wanted to read Wilson's Prelude, but it never fell into my hands. His classic. Dad loved Edmund Wilson. I'm not sure yet how much I need to know about Turner.

One of the most refreshing summer drinks ever invented.

Take a highball glass or large water glass filled with ice cubes, then fill halfway with lemonade, then sweetened iced tea to fill so it looks a bit layered. Slice of lemon. Straw. That's it.

Add some gin or vodka and it's a Dirty Arnold Palmer, but it really isn't necessary.

Deeply heart-warming: A Littel History

The Lightning is a Yellow Fork

The Lightning is a yellow Fork
From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt
The awful Cutlery
Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed.

While in process of cleaning out my parents' house, we discovered where Dad had stashed the shotguns. This nice surprise, among other well-used field guns, had been one of my Grandpa's. 

It's not as if I needed more shotguns, but this is a 16 ga., which is a good thing.

You know what this is. Remington built this one. It's a fairly heavy SOB. I don't think I have used it since I was 15.

The bore is clean as a whistle. I will clean 'er up and use it again for both sentimental and practical reasons.

Re-posted -

Lots of folks think bluefish are barely edible, but they are fit for a king when cooked the day they are caught, full of rich juicy fishy goodness. Mix in a bowl: mayonnaise, lots of chopped fresh ginger, some soy sauce, some salt and pepper, and chopped scallions. Coat both sides of the bluefish filets, then throw on the grill.

The secret to cooking many fish on the grill is to put a layer of aluminum foil on top of the grill, then cut a bunch of slits in the foil with a knife - it allows you to turn it without crumbling. Don't overcook - just 'til it flakes. Sprinkle with more chopped scallions when done on the flesh side, and serve with potato salad and green salad, crusty bread, martinis and champagne, and go to sleep happy, fulfilled, and thankful for God's bounty.

I've been using this recipe ever since I found it in John Hersey's 1987 bestseller "Blues" - a very fine and delightful book about fishing on the Islands - and about Life, of course. They might have it in that good bookstore on the main drag in Nantucket, but I'd be surprised. Anyway, they should.

The Bluefish is the favorite fast-food snack of the giant 500-1500 lb. Bluefin Tuna - a fish which I find inedibly dry and dull except as sushi. However, if you can find "toro" - the fatty belly meat of the Bluefin, which only can be found where Bluefin are regularly caught in Montauk, Cape Cod, and the Islands, season it with salt and pepper and throw that on the grill and it beats the best Kansas steak by a mile. 

Ask your fish store up there to save you some. Be careful and use low coals, because it will flame up and burn far more than a steak. The Japanese pay through the nose for it, which is why we can't find toro at our local fishmongers. They ice it and put it on a plane to Japan, and probably eat it raw, which is a shame and a waste because good Yankee smoke and flame reveal its deeper character. Indeed, as with people.

A tip from a reader - you can do swordfish belly meat too - never tried it but it makes good sense.

Mishaum Point is a tiny gated community (almost entirely a summer community) in the village of Dartmouth, MA, with its own little neighborhood yacht club. The point is a narrow peninsula sticking out into Buzzard's Bay. Most of the houses have property running down to the bay.

It's a pleasant day sail out to Cuttyhunk and the Elizabeth Islands for a picnic or an overnighter at anchor.

Most of the houses there were built in the '40s, it seems, but some more since then.

I liked the one in the picture. It's for sale. Asking $1.3 million, which seems like a very good deal to me. I could happily live there year-round - but there is no work nearby.

How's that view from the house?

A reader provided a snippet of this the other day. A longer quote, from the 1889 Brit political essay entitled "Socialism and Legislation" in The Westminster Review, Vol 125.

First, then, let us see how he would bestow increased powers and new functions upon municipal and other local authorities, with the view of increasing the enjoyment and raising the morals of the people. He points to the fact, as we have seen, that these authorities have already given to the people parks and art galleries and museums out of the pockets of the wealthy. Why, we may well ask, are they to stop there?

Personally, we may care very little for fossils and may care a great deal for Shakespeare and the opera bouffe. It is a considerable check upon my indulgence in these intellectual pastimes that I have to pay for them out of my own pocket; but why, we should like to know, should the man who wants to look at fossils, or some modern genre picture, be gratified at the public expense, while another has to pay for his seat in the theatre? If the persons who have the levying of the taxes are not to pay them, but are to benefit by the money when it is paid, we see no limit to the amount of recreation and enjoyment which may be provided by means of taxation for the poor of this country—except the bottom of the purse of the rich man. No doubt we all desire to see the lives of the poor enhanced in the way Mr. Chamberlain indicates, and no one desires it more than the poor man himself, and we can understand that having amusement provided at the public cost is a taste which grows by what it feeds on.

It is said that a man who had been shipwrecked, who had lived upon the hardest of boots and shoes and upon a very exposed raft, for we do not know how many weeks, and who was ultimately rescued, was brought to London, and introduced to some feeling journalist who, when he had got his story out of the man, asked him if he could do anything for him. Whereupon the man, who had nothing in the world, for he had, as we said earlier, eaten his boots, asked for “an order for the play.” We expect to hear a good many more demands made, following Mr. Chamberlain’s lead, for recreation at the expense of the rich. That the national resources which are necessary “to put the poor to work” should be frittered away in attempting to raise by indulgence, by amusement, by recreation, the lives of those whose first necessity is discipline, is, we think, a very questionable proposal.

That a statesman, with a due sense of his responsibility, should so far mislead the people by promises which can only, in the long run, lead to disappointment, is a bad sign of our times. Surely he must know that if the people once taste the sweets of plunder, if they begin to enjoy the unearned increment, there will be larger demands made, and that the only end to those demands will be the end of that useful milk-cow, the capitalist class. Having recreation at the expense of another can only be a temporary, a very temporary, expedient. In the first place the wealth of this country is not, by any means, so great as to enable the whole of the inhabitants to enjoy life in the way suggested, and even if it were, a time would very soon come when the person who supplied the recreation would have no more to “pay the piper” with, and then, we fear, the dancing must cease, or go on without music. But will it last even so long?

An American candidate said “Capital is sensitive; it shrinks from the very appearance of danger.” We think that it is shrinking in this country, and if capital goes beyond the seas, if it is taken to other and safer countries, we shall have the poor of this country dancing to quite other tunes than those which are being composed by their over-sanguine guides for their delectation. We shall have the poor of this country condemned to misery and starvation. They themselves cannot see this, but it behoves those who would constitute themselves the leaders of the people to take heed lest they mislead them into such ” sloughs of despond.”

Reposted-

Every once in a while I get a hankering for a good rare steak. My preference is for Ribeyes (sauteed rare in butter, at max heat, with red peppers) and T-bones on charcoal or wood - or on both.

The best T-bone I think I have ever had was in the steakhouse on the ship last month. Grilled perfectly, of course: burnt on the outside but still trying to walk away on the inside. The chef told us it was a Sterling Silver steak.

I can recommend their meat to you (and I have eaten in plenty of steaks over the years in the great NYC steakhouses).

Saddest thing is that I couldn't eat the whole thing. It was a thick steak, full of tasty fat. I have deliberately shrunk my stomach by eating small to try to avoid the middle-aged fat thing.

I am taking a brief, several day break from my morning link duty (not to worry - we have hired a sub at great expense) to give me a little time for various things, family and personal refreshment.

Therefore, I will dump what links I have right now to clean up my screen.

4 reasons capitalism is morally bankrupt, dying

American Federation of Teachers: It's unconstitutional to demand that professional teachers dress slightly better than unskilled day labor you might pick up milling around in front of Home Depot in the morning

I saw people walking into an Italian wake the other day in shorts and t-shirts.

E-mails Suggest Collusion Between FEC, IRS to Target Conservative Groups

Duh.

Zuckerberg: My net worth only went up $3.8 billion today, so America needs cheaper programmers

I have the same problem hiring Maggie's contributors

Secret Sex Tape: Monica Lewinsky Caught On Explicit Recording Telling Bill Clinton, ‘I Could Take My Clothes Off…’

She's a fun chick ... or was. Everybody does stupid things when they are young. The wise youth stay off the front pages. Perhaps not off the police blotter, but off the front pages.

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

If they notice that I check Powerline regularly, am I in trouble?

A good sound. He talks more than sings. Fun to see ol' Leon on the pianny.

With knowledge comes more doubt.

Goethe

What's the best Champagne in the world? My chef friend claims it is Salon

If you want to avoid a headache, it's cheaper just to skip the Champagne altogether. That friend thinks that Veuve Clicquot is a close second.

Why Are Google Employees So Disloyal?

Letter to the Editor re home schooling

The Ideal English Major

America The Nice?

A 280,000% Mark Up For... Water? A Look Inside The Bottled Water Industry

San Antonio Exclusion from Government Commissions of People Who Have Ever “Demonstrated” “Bias” “by Word or Deed”

A woman who is not fit to carry a firearm

Why Obama doesn't dare speak about Detroit

World Trade Center Memorial Didn't Want A Ground Zero Picture

PPP poll: Palin leads Alaska Republican Senate primary by 10 points

1,122 Record Cold Temps in the U.S. in one week

Georgia Insurance Rates Spike Under Obamacare

Sultan: The end of shame

Mead: We Really Don’t Understand Our Climate

Barack Obama’s clueless message to America’s middle class shows a presidency out of touch with reality

Detroit bankruptcy could flood Obamacare exchanges

I said I'd grab a few more pics of my late parents' home before we hurriedly plan to empty it out this week. Here's their living room. I think it is very pleasant, airy and and simple. Cathedral ceiling. A serene feeling. My Dad designed the whole house, and he was not an architect.

Large, wall-length fireplace on the left, with a raised hearth doubling as a bench, and with a 4'X4' antique oil portrait of a prize cow hanging over it.

No TV of course, but a radio for WQXR and a CD player on a bookshelf. Plus a piano in case you really love music enough to try to make some.

Can walk from there to our country 1763 Congregational Church. A nice 20-minute walk in any season, any weather.

In case you didn't read the comment thread -

- Ethanol-free gas (100% gasoline) for power tools is now available in some Home Depots

- For smaller trees and stumps, cut them to ground level with a reciprocating saw. I have a cordless Sawzall (wonderful tool), but the thought never occurred to me to do that. Chain saws can never touch dirt, but a Sawzall don't care.

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."

John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765