Maggie's Farm

A re-post from June 2008 -

One day last week we took the ferry up Lake Maggiore to the impeccably preserved medieval village of Cannobio, just south of the Swiss border.

Cannobio (dig the poor English in that link) is one of those towns that I call "Disney Italy," or sometimes "The Italian Holodeck." It's so quaint and charming that it doesn't seem quite real. Mrs. BD likes to try to remind me that it is real, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm on a stage set.

Like most ancient Italian villages, the streets and general layout show their medieval origins, but most of the structures are Renaissance era stone, masonry and stucco.

The cars were mostly Mercedes and Audis, and the clothing shops decidedly upscale and high fashion. Mrs. BD observed that an elegant lady we passed had a $3000 handbag, so we figured that Cannobio must be a quiet escape for the prosperous of Milan. Their weekend dwellings, however, seem to be simple and 600 years old.

Our goal was a tiny restaurant we had read about, behind a church up in the mountains behind Connobio. We hiked about 3 or 4 km in intermittent rain up the Val Cannobino through the hamlet of Traffiume (all walking in northern Italy is uphill - there is no downhill. It's like an endlessly uphill Escher.), only to arrive after they had closed their lunchtime service.

Later that day, we foolishly missed the last ferry back and had to improvise by bus and cab to get back to the hotel in the dark, wet, tired - and not well-fed. 

Photo is Sant Anna Church, north of Cannobio. It's perched on the edge of a prodigious gorge. If you want to lunch in the little restaurant behind it, Ristorante Grotto Sant' Anna, get there on time.

More photos of Cannobio and environs on continuation page below.

Part 1 was posted yesterday morning. This is from Dr. Bliss.

The Headmaster also had a policy that all administrators had to teach something - from the Admissions officer to the Provost and the Dean - and coach a sport too (however badly - nobody there cared if you were a lousy coach as long as we all got 2 hours of strenuous sport and fresh air). That was wise. Everybody was a teacher first. Every kid had to take 4 years of an ancient language and 4 years of a modern language, and you had to take math at least up to pre-calc. Plenty of kids flunked out. They would say to the parents "Sally does not seem to want or to be ready to take what we have to offer her here."

One of the teachers (or masters, as they were called), with or without their spouse as they wished, presided over every (assigned) table at all meals except breakfast, which was a free-for-all. You could not miss a meal. We students rotated the table service duty, and also the dish-washing duty (in what we called the Wombatorium).

We had required, monitored study hall (in old, panelled study halls) every night after dinner except Saturdays, from 7-10. Except for seniors. No talking and no non-textbooks. There was a prayer before breakfast and dinner, which was rotated through the students regardless of their religion.

Yes, everybody had to be in a sport, every semester. And every teacher was "Sir" or Ma'am." No complicated "dress code" - just a school uniform which made school shopping very inexpensive. The beds were hard and the rooms were cold in the winter. The only TV was in the snack shop, which opened after sports and closed before evening chapel.

Everybody rotated through School Duties: Dinner serving, Sunday Faculty Tea serving, scullery duty, lawn care duty, janitorial duty in the halls and common rooms (dusting, vacuuming), etc. No excuses.

There was brief chapel every evening (announcements, a prayer, a Bible reading, a homily, a hymn), and Sunday church, all presided over by the Headmaster with all faculty (and with all spouses and families on Sunday) in attendance. All the features of a low-Anglican service. The Jewish, Protestant (which I am), Hindu, and atheist kids never were converted (as far as I know), but they did learn to appreciate the virtue of a daily rhythm of contemplation and worship. Plus they learned a lot about Christianity. It is worth knowing about.

Darn good organist, who was also a Music teacher.

My parents sacrificed quite a bit for me to go there: new cars, trips, etc. I am true to my school. I still miss it, in a way.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse.

Henry Ford

"A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker."

H. L. Mencken, quoted at Am Digest

"I could be unravelin'
Wherever I'm travelin'
even to foreign shores..."

From 1985's under-appreciated album Empire Burlesque. Tune here (embedding is disabled).

It's the time of year when Tree Swallows head for the coasts to assemble for their migrations. I have seen them flocking by the hundreds on Cape Cod in August (even saw an albino among them a couple of years ago), and by the thousands in places like Jamaica Bay NWP.

These fine birds bother me in the spring, when they successfully compete for the 25 Bluebird nest boxes I have gone to much trouble to clean etc.

Bugs and berries are their food, and they like to breed near water. More about them at the new, and less informative, CLO.

Photo is a male. The females are brown.

26 acres with barn, unusual 6-BR house, pool, paddocks, pastures, tennis court, etc. in the rolling Litchfield Hills. Listing details here. $2.3 million, proving that there are very good reasons to want to make money. One photo:

Also, this pleasant 300-acre farm, asking $6.9 million, and worth every penny. Details here.

The First Congregational Church, Litchfield (1760)

We posted a little while ago about Sociologists complaining about not being a major factor in the Obama administration. Now I see the Anthropologists seeking political "relevancy."

Oh man, that is so 60s. So silly. What's the problem? Do social scientists feel disempowered? I think they should just stick to their knitting and find out fun stuff. It's not supposed to be useful: it's supposed to be pursuit of knowledge.

The new taxes the Dems are contemplating

Blue Crab: "This is fairly shocking. The New York Times discovers that a lot of people who oppose ObamaCare are not raving lunatics - something the Times has not exactly been reporting before now." Related: Those darn violent right wing nuts.

Related: I thought it odd that we have heard very few ordinary people supporting government medicine. Of course not, since polls say 80% of people are happy with their medical care. Gateway found out who does support government medical care. Not exactly ordinary people.

Via RCP, from a Dem in Forbes:

Step back for a second, listen to what the non-screaming skeptics are saying, and it's clear the party severely overestimated its mandate and underestimated the public's growing unease with the government's massive growth over the last year. What would have been a hard sell in any environment has turned into an epic challenge. Yet the Democrats have been charging ahead as if it's still November 2008, oblivious to the dramatic change in the electorate's mood.

At Pajamas:

Now, as Matt Welch of Reason magazine points out, fear of big government is all the rage — and is cause for rage. He writes:

This isn’t about liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. A majority oppose Obama’s policies because they fly in the face of this country’s bedrock values of personal liberty and limited government. Robbing Peter to pay Goldman Sachs does violence to that fundamentally American ethos.

And increasingly, Obama administration policy does violence to European values, as well. The continent has for the last two decades been systematically disengaging national governments from domestic industries. Top officials from Sweden, of all places, complained about Washington’s auto bailout, tersely announcing that “the Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories.”

And while conservatives find it hard to believe that voters didn’t see this coming from the most liberal man in the U.S. Senate, Welch correctly concludes, “Americans didn’t vote for big government last November. They voted for a guy who looked like he could keep his cool in the heat of battle. If Obama wants to regain that cool, he needs to rein in the power-grabbers in Washington.”

But that goes for Republicans as well.

1799, via Volokh (h/t, Insty):

 Let me place myself in the President’s chair, at the head of a party in this country, aiming to extend the influence of the governing powers at the expence of the governed; to increase the authority and prerogative of the Executive, and to reduce by degrees to a mere name, the influences of the people. How should I set about it? What system should I pursue?

1st. As the rights reserved by the State Governments and the bounds and limits set by the Constitution of the Union, are the declared barriers against the encroachments of entrusted power, my first business would be to undermine that Constitution, and render it useless, by claiming authority which, though not given by the express words of it, might be edged in under the cover of general expressions or implied powers — by stretching the meaning of the words used to their utmost latitude, — by taking advantage of every ambiguity — and by quibbling upon distinctions to explain away the plain and obvious meaning. It would be my business to extend the powers of the Federal Courts and of Federal Officers — to encroach upon the State jurisdictions — to throw obloquy on the State Governments as clogs upon the wheel of the General Government — for that purpose to promote a spirit of party among them, and subject to accusations of disaffection those who were opposed to the measures I would pursue. In addition to this I would now and then exercise trifling acts of authority not granted by the Constitution, under some undefined notion of prerogative. If by such means one encroachment should be made good, it would be a precedent for another, until the public by degrees would become accustomed and callous to them.

"Us right-wing nuts sure is scary!" Our hero PJ, Still 'Crazy' - And Proud of It. Conservatives induce a case of the vapors at the Washington Post.

They do not know how to write an English sentence. Stanley Fish on What Should Colleges Teach? I thought that writing, logically developed argument, and coherent essay writing was a job for high school, not college. h/t, Althouse

Via Bernard Goldberg:

Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots.  For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush “did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.”  Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify.

I am a Neanderthal. OK. That's what I always thought anyway. I eat red meat too. Yummy.

Can medical care be a Constitutional entitlement?

Castro comes out in defence of Obama. That will help a lot. An endorsement only Hollywood could appreciate.

Were the bailouts a good idea? Marginal Rev

Will Scotland learn from this? 

Our friend Jonah's final post on his Liberal Fascism blog.

The Admin joins the defence team for terrorists. Brilliant move. I am sure that will make them love us. Here comes the Grand Inquisitor from Connecticut.

More stimulating stimulus dollars. Why not just give Vouchers for Hookers? Like Cash for Clunkers?

No Pasaran:

Carle Zimmerman emphasized an inverse relationship between the strength of the family and the strength of the state. In other words, he argued that as the state increases in power, the family weakens; and as the state loses power — when the state becomes weak, for whatever reason — the family becomes stronger…

Russia's ongoing romance with Stalin. They like strong (paranoid) men.

Need something interesting to do, and a reasonably safe adventure? The Great Loop is just the thing. It's 5500-7000 miles (depending on your route), so it takes a while depending on your pace.

It's the boating version of the Appalachian Trail.

To make it longer and more adventurous, some Loopers skip the Hudson River and go around the Gaspe Peninsula and down the length of the St. Lawrence.

First, you have to find the right looper boat.

Here's the American Great Loop Cruiser's Association site.

Of course, for car trippers, there is The Great American Road Trip. Everybody probably ought to do it once. I only got as far as Denver and a bit of New Mexico when it was time to turn around and get back to school. Every 100 miles, my pal and I would trade off running a mile or two along the road to stay sane (difficult to do on an airplane trip, unfortunately). Good essay on the topic at Smithsonian.

I'm sure we have plenty of readers who have done the latter, but do we have any Looper readers?

Things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining.

Viktor Frankl (h/t, Vanderleun)

The 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope (photo from the article). Related: The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D

Training drone pilots (with attack video) h/t, Neptunus

Photographers' Rights. h/t, Insty

Rick Moran: Why You couldn't pay me to be a doctor

Unbelieveable. IQ too high for the police department. Must be stupid bosses. You cannot be too smart to be a good cop.

The GOP's Hispanic problem

Big surprise:

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, had shown “no sensitivity” to the families of those who died, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, told the Scottish Parliament....

Hmmm. I see no Christian repentence there.

Sowell: A new push to play God from Washington

Saints are no more common in the insurance industry than in politics or even among paragons of virtue like economists. So there will always be horror stories, even if these are less numerous or less horrible than what is likely to happen if Obamacare gets passed into law.

Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to "keep insurance companies honest"-- and many people may not see the painful irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest. Certainly most of the media are unlikely to point out this irony.

More Sowell: Utopia vs. Freedom

The nightmare of rationing in Oregon. Pajamas

Via NRO:

American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the "mandate of heaven" is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.

The only President America treated with anything like a cult of personality was George Washington (and maybe FDR, sad to say). Washington rejected it, and rightly, graciously, and honorably refused to run for re-election. Americans do not "anoint" - we hire and fire. We should probably fire more often, and more pols should make themselves temporary public servants rather than careerists. Government is not a religion - and politics should not be a road to an easy life and a generous pension for lazy or incompetent narcissists, schmoozers, and con artists.

Maine Sportsman. Last month they had an article "Which Bird Dog?"

That's what I ask myself each morning when I glance at the unfamiliar face in the mirror.

(There it is. Thanks, reader.)

The sand art animation of Kseniya Simonova (h/t, Samiz): 

Rules for Radicals turns to the right. Tiger. We have discussed Alinsky and Gramsci many times here. Along with 1984, Brave New World, Das Kapital, and Animal Farm, they seem to be the handbooks of the Left. 

Oh, brother is right. The racist national parks. Related, from the hideously white Mr. Free Market

The Death Book for Veterans. Nice. Didn't we already ask them to die for their country once? Related: Obama to elderly: Drop Dead

A CT Rep who doesn't want to face the voters. Phone it in.

From Rev. Sirico:

Faith communities should recognize the Religious Left’s ‘40 Days’ campaign for what it is: a politically driven effort to expand a bloated state and make Americans evermore dependent on politicians and bureaucrats for healthcare.

Cash for clunkers was great for the Japanese car companies. I thought it was supposed to help American car companies.

Sen. Joe Lieberman must be listening to people. Slow it down.

Is a Federal insurance mandate Constitutional? No. Not under the Commerce clause, anyway. The Constitution gives no such power to the government. h/t, Viking

Important essay via Betsy: Do we expect too much from medical insurance? I believe so. At some point, some people seemed to expect "insurance" to pay all of their bills for them instead of simply insuring them against especially high or costly expenses. If a $60 pediatrician visit is too much for somebody, then they cannot afford to have kids yet.

Related: It's the big government, stupid. A quote from the NY Post piece:

While the commentariat's condescension is almost comical, the whole evil-or-stupid explanation misses the elephant in Obama's room: Americans of all stripes, it turns out, aren't very keen about the government barging into their lives.

Related by Lewis at Am Thinker:

Obama is trying to sell us Euro-socialism, which means bribing and intimidating people with their own tax money and corralling everyone with an endless sea of laws and regulations, until they know they can never fight City Hall. The crux of ObamaCare is centralizing power; everybody is made helpless except the politically connected.

Noubini: A double-dip vs a U-shaped recession?

Steyn via Dino:

Mark Steyn has further comments on Obamacare:

Why be scared of a government health program? After all, says the president, “Medicare is a government program that works really well,” and if “we’re able to get something right like Medicare,” we should have more “confidence” about being able to do it for everyone.

On the other hand, says the president, Medicare is “unsustainable” and “running out of money.” By the way, unlike your run-of-the-mill politician’s contradictory statements, these weren’t made a year or even a week apart, but during the same presidential speech in Portsmouth, N.H.

Whatever. This would be amusing in a not-so-dangerous world. This incoherence does seem to track with Obama’s 41% strong disapproval rating. Heaven help us all!

Steyn neglects to mention that, last I heard, the Dem plan is to fold Medicare and Medicaid into the government-controlled single-payer program. Let's face it: their ultimate goal is to put us all in government-run and controlled post-office-style clinics like the Indian Health Service. Clinics in schools too, because modern parents cannot be entrusted to take care of their own kids, can they?

The "Oh sh-t" photo from Theo. A timely metaphor.

From a Town Hall meeting in Washington state. h/t, Classical Values. I know what the Congressman is thinking inside: "Why do I have to put up with these damn annoying citizens when we have such good plans for them?"

In my view, no real American wants anybody to make plans for their lives.

We had speculated this this could be happening, but doubted that the Admin would really go this far: Breaking: White House Confirms It Used US Taxpayer Dollars to Sell Obamacare!  Not legal, I believe, if true.

It's a scandal, possibly criminal (I am not a lawyer) - and it smells like Chicago.

Ephesians 6:10-20

6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.

6:11 Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

6:12 For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

6:13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

6:14 Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.

6:15 As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.

6:16 With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

6:17 Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

6:18 Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.

6:19 Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,

6:20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

PETA has forced countless women to fellate vegetables.

Spending on medical treatment is a wonderful thing and a great privilege. People should want to spend more on it. Just check out my dental implants, or read my (stainless steel) left hip. Good stuff, but not cheap - but worth every penny, and only easily available in the good old USA.

The Barrister, in a post here last week: Medical care in Canada "imploding," says top doc - plus a few words about the government Octopus and hallucinations, plus a good word for costly American bionics

I appreciate the kind words about my attempting to cover our (almost) daily links post while the News Junkie is away. It takes too much time and care, but I am doing my best. However, I will be away part of this week through Labor Day for my undeserved trip. And I need to pack. While I usually travel light, this trip requires suits, sports jackets, ties, etc., along with the usual hideous but comfortable American tourist uniform - including my straw Stetson which was a fashion hit in Turkey a few years ago. When I travel with Mrs. BD, I think I look like an American dork who has had the luck or money to pick up a lovely Italian lady.

Wind farms kill bats by the thousands. Oil does not.

First we had MADD (I agree that drunk driving is a bad thing, but that a couple of beers does not qualify.) Now we have Moms Aginst Ice Cream. What next bunch of controlling cranks will we have to deal with? Summer without ice cream is un-American. Also, Moms, there is always the little word "No."

Imagine if Bush had said it: We are God's partners. Government is God's partner? Give me a break.

Shelby Steele on why minorites are alienated from Conservatives.

It goes unpreported, but the Repubs have some medical care reforms that people might be interested in - and to be able to understand, too.

Theory: Obama thinks you're stupid. Zogby: the O hits new low in polling. Byrd at Wiz: When will Libs figure it out?

Noonan on Pull the Plug:

Right now Mr. Obama's gift is his curse, a Congress dominated by his party. While the country worries about the economy and two wars, the Democrats of Congress are preoccupied with the idea that this is their moment, now is their time, health care now, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the only blazingly memorable phrase to be uttered in the new era.

It's not especially pleasurable to see history held hostage to ideological vanity, but it's not the first time. And if they keep it up, they'll help solve the president's problem. He'll have a Republican congress soon enough.

Priests, ministers and rabbis: beware -

Priests, beware. OFA’s health-care efforts are only the first of many community organizing projects to come.  “Next is energy and then education, all before the new year,” says Kelley.

Related: Why do the Dems seem willing to drop insurance coverage of illegals? Cuz they plan to make them legal.  The Dems are full of plans, and this is their only chance. Knowing this, immigrants bring mariachi bands and Mexican flags to hopey-changey free medical care rally.

Related: Democrats are right that uncompensated emergency care for the uninsured is driving up costs. What they don't say is it's illegal immigrants who are bankrupting ERs, and the federal government is encouraging them. Should I be paying for their kids' ear aches?

Having gotten the deficit to 9 trillion, the Prez takes a vacation. The plan is obviously to increase debt to the point that dramatic tax increases on everybody become required by the coming "federal debt crisis." Inflation won't solve it.

A fawning MSM asks Gibbs: What more can we do to help? I do not recall such solicitude towards Bush's people. At Insty:

JAMES TARANTO: Q: What’s the difference between the Associated Press and the Obama campaign? A: The AP admits the public is against it. “There’s one more difference between Obama and the AP: He is a politician trying to get a piece of legislation passed. One expects him to shade the truth, to downplay inconvenient facts. Politicians have even been forgiven for outright lies. By contrast, of what use is a news service that is not rigorously impartial and factual?” Oh, the Administration has found ‘em fairly useful.

Leavitt says:

Leavitt says that the Democrats are worried that their Trojan Horse has been spotted, so they are just looking for a new disguise to get the contraption through the gates.

Like that hasn’t been tried before.

Dressing it up in a bunny suit doesn’t make it into something else. Man the catapults.

The inept Gov. Paterson calls Media Racist.  Must be that famously racist New York media.

From Politico:

By doing so much, so fast, Obama never sufficiently educated the public on the logic behind his policies. He spent little time explaining the biggest bailouts in U.S. history, which he inherited but supported and expanded. And then he lost crucial support on the left by not following up quickly with new and stricter rules for Wall Street. On Friday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman echoed a concern widely shared among leading liberals. “I don’t know if administration officials realize just how much damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government supported institutions paying giant bonuses is playing.” 

By doing so much so fast, Obama jammed the circuits on Capitol Hill. Congress has a hard time doing even one big thing well at a time. Congress is good at passing giveaways and tax cuts, but has not enacted a transformative piece of social legislation since President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform of 1996. “There’s a reason things up here were built to go slowly,” said another Democratic aide. 

By doing so doing so much, so fast, he has left voters — especially independents — worried that he got an overblown sense of his mandates and is doing, well, too much too fast. A Washington Post-ABC News poll published Friday found that independents’ confidence in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions had dropped 20 points since the Inauguration, from 61 percent to 41 percent. 

Image via Opie, who says that she hasn't had much to say lately, but that the image captures most of it.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:



So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Excellent analysis by VDH: The strange case of the Obama meltdown. One quote:

Income is deemed arbitrary and compensation not rational; thus government is called upon to even things out given its greater wisdom and superior moral sensibility. The rapid growth in the state leads to permanent loyal constituencies of those who grant and receive entitlements—and could not be undone for generations, if ever. A religiosity surrounds these proposals, and critics (“fishy”) are targeted on email and websites, considered un-American and now un-Christian, in one of the most glaring examples of the utopian ends justifying devious means that we have seen in our lifetimes. 

Related: Here comes the Blame Game

An experienced outdoorsman can identify most of the plants and trees in the areas with which he is familar - but not so much elsewhere. Like learning languages, though, he can learn a new area quickly because he has woods-sense based on the types of habitats he already knows.

An experienced outdoorsman can also predict what birds and critters are likely to be found in a given habitat. Woods-sense is one of the few talents I have. I like to attribute it to my Iroquois blood.

It used to be called Woodcraft, then Natural History, and now it's called Science: Barcoding plants by their DNA. It's sort-of cool, but it is soul-less and not woodcraft.

Photo: An Alder thicket - a common lowland and streamside habitat in the northern US. I have busted my way through more of these nearly-impenetrable things than I can count. The branches pull your hat off constantly, and sometimes you feel like you are in jail, with no exit. And if you try to raise your gun for a Grouse or Woodcock, there's always a branch to stop you. Good stuff.

The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.

Aldous Huxley (h/t, LGF)