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.
Nothing has changed. The Yale Daily News was full of despicable little leftwing shits back in my day just like today. If they could see what Yale became, Henry Luce & Briton Hadden would be throwing up in the street.
The media mouth-frothing has reached unbearable levels, and quickly. ... This is not a new observation by any means. It was almost as bad in favor of candidate Obama in 2008, but a slobbering lovefest was far different a media trying to bring down a presidency without a single shred of substantive evidence to date.
Let's face it, there's going to be a new, and most likely completely baseless, instance of Trump derangement blaring from the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post more or less every day for at least the next three and a half years. It can be amusing to make fun of these things, but at some point the Manhattan Contrarian has to find something better to do. How about looking into recent reporting on Venezuela?
Based on a tip from a reader, I turned to interior page A4 of Monday's edition of the New York Times...
OK, but worse probably in the social sciences. Generally, it is very easy to cheat in science. Biggest problem might be that negative results are almost never published.
...power, while dangerous in anyone’s hands, is especially dangerous in the hands of people who are enticed during early adulthood into believing both that they are fit to order others about and that such commandeering of the lives of others is noble rather than nefarious.
LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!
We are convinced that a balanced fitness program is the best route for ordinary people who just want to stay Fit For Life, with all-round functional fitness being the goal. Some readers disagree with our view, but that's ok. We're happy to hear your opinions because fitness remains a field with more questions than answers, every body is different, and everybody is an expert.
Readers know that our idea of "balanced" entails a mix of cardio, calisthenics, and strength-building/strength-maintenance while getting into fighting shape with enough protein and neither too much nor too little fat on your bones.
Some athletes, and many exercisers, tend to focus on just one of the three categories. That is unbalanced. Pure cardio exercisers (treadmill jockeys, runners, bikers, swimmers) tend to be weak in muscle and bone. Many guys who just lift can't run or hike up hills 15 miles or negotiate a ladder drill. And so forth.
One sensible way to structure a balanced 5 day/wk program is to put a 30- min HIIT (anaerobic) cardio day after a weights day, and a 45-60 min endurance (aerobic, aka "fat-burning") cardio day for the day after the second weight day. Then fit in a calisthenics/plyometric day somewhere else. That schedule allows 48+hr recovery from the strength days because the cardio doesn't interfere with muscle recovery, while heavy calis can. That's our under-5 hr/wk fitness program. Every high school and college should offer, or require, something like that.
My high school did require weights, sprints, and calisthenic drills for everybody for an hour after lunch, followed by your daily sport afterwards. They rightly figured that adolescent boys needed it, and the coaches were like drill sergeants. Mens sana in corpore sano. I think only elite private high schools require things like that now. It's a shame because all kids should have the chance to learn about fitness routines.
Answers to FAQs about the Maggie's recommendations are below the fold -
The retired general said he can live with Trump's inexperience, as everyone lacks experience when they start a new job. However, he said he's more focused on Trump's "seeming lack of humility in the face of obvious inexperience."
"Here is a president who seems to go into these encounters with, frankly, an unjustified self-confidence in the ability of his person to make these things come out right," said Hayden. "He throws away, pushes to the side, and doesn't pay attention to what the institutions of the government have set up for him to be successful."
This is not the first time Berkeley administrators have lost control of the campus. The supposed irony that the home of the legendary 1960s Free Speech Movement has become inhospitable to the speech of anyone who departs from campus orthodoxy has become a commonplace observation in recent weeks. But this perception has the matter backwards. The seeds of today's stifling campus conformism trace back directly to that misunderstood episode. Far from being an example of true campus openness, the Free Speech Movement was a key inflection point on the way to the ruin of our universities. The one common denominator then and now is the ineptitude and pusillanimity of college administrators and the capitulation of faculties to the demands of radicalized students.
Our Sportsmen’s club held our Take A Vet Fishing event Saturday. This marks our seventh year in a row of hosting the group. In spite of the threat of rain, around 45 vets showed up for a morning of fishing in our stocked pond (over 100 trout caught), as well as lunch.
Take A Vet fishing was formed about ten years ago as a program of a local Congregational Church. The first year we hosted these folks, we were afraid no one would show up – about 20 did. It’s grown since then and this year’s event attendance was held down only by the weather.
So here’s my plea, Mr. President: Make it easier for others to keep the faith. You’ll accomplish much more and many more Americans will be proud to stand with you.
Our leader Bulldog planned a West Side route this year, from the fountain at Lincoln Center (where they filmed some scenes in West Side Story when it was rubble) to the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire just east of Washington Square in Greenwich Village - with more interesting detours and zig-zags to sites than I can report or remember. He reported briefly here.
From Lincoln Center to transport home, I clocked 13.8 miles, with sore quads. My sis, who just had a hip replacement after a running accident, handled it all and is eager for the next hike. It's just far more interesting than her usual country hiking, with so much to look at and to talk about. Golly, as a country boy I do love this crazy city and any out-of-towners who hike with us come to feel the same way.
Before I post a few random street pics, two free ads: first, Artichoke Pizza. After going into Moore's ancient Chelsea church, we strolled through Chelsea Market (good fun, lots of food and stuff) and headed up a block to their location on 10th Ave. in Chelsea. Best New York pizza I have found - ever. Thin pizza, oily and slightly burnt the way I like it. Many cool beers on tap. Fast, rough NYC-style service: you had better know exactly what you want when you're up. Perfect for a cool drizzly day.
The cupcake ad is for Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker St. Perfect cupcakes. Stupid to resist cuz life is short and you do not get there every day.
Marianne would have liked this post. From Lincoln Center, we headed downtown on Broadway thru Columbus Circle, noting the huge new "pencil" high-rises going up on Central park South -
As with lobsters, for conservation purposes it is better to eat the small ones and release the big ones. Laws are often irrational. Small sea critters have poor survival rates anyway, but the big breeders matter for the future.
Rational and effective conservation law would be to keep the small ones and throw back the big ones.
Let's just go along with the culture even if some of these days are commercial inventions to sell stuff. After all, moms do deserve special attention.
So thanks to my Mom (photo) for producing me, thanks to my mother-in-law for producing my wife, and thanks to my daughter-in-law for producing two rambunctious little baby boys.
14:1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.
14:2 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
14:4 And you know the way to the place where I am going."
14:5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"
14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
14:7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
14:8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."
14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
14:12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
14:13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
He bought the house at 94 MacDougal St in the West Village but celeb-sniffers got the best of him. He was young, didn't realize that he was as famous as he was, a "prophet for a generation." He loved NYC the most but fled to privacy in Malibu and promptly set about proving that he wasn't any prophet. Then his wife dumped him and he crashed.
We know he still skulks around the Village alone and anonymously in a hoodie, when he's on tour in the area. Few people recognize the strange old little guy ducking into music joints and pubs. I would.
Manhattan Contrarian informs me that the interior of Dylan's old block contains a large private garden. Must be nice in there.
The Sanderling is familiar to anybody who has been to a saltwater beach. Their range is worldwide, and about half of their population lives in the New World. Their migration routes are astonishing for such little guys.
You can identify them by their beach behavior as much as by their appearance because few flocking shorebirds follow the receding surf as quickly, like mechanical toys.
Birders learn to ID birds as much by behavior as by appearance.
Like Hallmark holidays, and Bar and Bat Mitvahs, people feel forced/obligated by convention to waste perfectly good and hard-earned money for a couple of hours, or too many hours, of forced merriment with overly-loud obnoxious music.
The party predators are out there, like sharks.
On the other hand, throwing a $60,000 wedding is one way to pay back, in one event, all of those past invitations from people which you have accumulated. So there's that. But would the kids just prefer the cash?
The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Sabotage! It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot.
The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed. The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax.
Let's just go along with the culture even if some of these days are commercial inventions to sell stuff. After all, moms do deserve special attention.
The Sanderling is familiar to anybody who has been to a saltwater beach. Their range is worldwide, and about half of their population lives in the New World. Their migration routes are astonishing for such little guys.
