Maggie's Farm

Great Books 30-min. podcast

Good fun.

But one that didn't spend time in the shop, and one that was sporty enough but not flashy, not a cop magnet. And that is affordable.

I've been driving my Stelvio for almost three years (thanks, Mrs. BD). Zero problems.  It's just a Giulia with more space in back like a "crossover". Ferrari designed the fun engine. Just a click into all-wheel drive if you want it. Can drive it on automatic or manual. Zero problems thus far.

I have noticed that Italian police use them. It figures. 

 2023 Alfa Romeo Giulia

Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, ‘Crime and Punishment,’ offers a radical reinterpretation of guilt and redemption.

 The uncomfortable truth that Raskolnikov discovers is that one’s inner self may be dark: cruel, evil, petty, and arrogant to the point of inhumanity. The hideous truth that Dostoevsky reveals is that perhaps one’s inner self is even usually this way.

Raskolnikov is ashamed of not feeling shame for his obsession with his own identity, and he covers up this shame with pride in himself, as though pride were the opposite of—and cure for—his shame. 

The song of the Wood Thrush came through my window Friday morning. A migrant, I think. It is a fine, musical spring sound which connects me with every spring I have lived through.

The Wood Thrush inhabits the dark Eastern forests of mature hardwoods and hemlocks, and is far more often heard than seen. His song is often described as a flute-like yodel, and indeed it is one of the haunting sounds from the woodlands. He forages near the ground for bugs, worms, and berries.

They do breed in the woodlands of the Farm but right now most of them are headed north. The great songbird (and warbler) migration to breeding grounds.

This member of the large family of Thrushes, which includes the American Robin, is heavily parasitized by Cowbirds, the Welfare Queens of the bird world.

Hear his remarkable song, and read more about him, here. If you do not really know birds, make sure you listen to the song on the site - if you spend any time outside, you will recognize that tune.

Ramis was a fine fellow

Candide Thovex has cojones. This is Switzerland.

Should be watched every year. It's an Amazon rental.

More physicists are questioning reality

"It's Time For The Scientific Community To Admit We Were Wrong About COVID & It Cost Lives"

 Massive Peer-Reviewed Mask Study Shows 'Little To No Difference' In Preventing COVID, Flu Infection

 Welcome to Neom, Saudi Arabia’s desert dystopia in the making

 ‘De-Extinction’ Company Will Try to Bring Back the Dodo. Colossal Biosciences also intends to resurrect the thylacine and woolly mammoth—an ambitious agenda, considering no extinct species has ever been brought back.

 GAO going after school dress codes

 Washington Post editorial board: Migrants are gaming the asylum system

 Inside New York's migrant hotel

Heather at Spectator:  Racism has become an unfalsifiable proposition. 

 We may have just celebrated MLK Day, but he lost...

Re Memphis:  Kicks to the head are especially damning. It’s what street thugs do. That’s a beatdown. And it looks very different than the restraint attempts that were at issue in other cases, like the George Floyd drug overdose.

 "Objectivity Has Got To Go": News Leaders Call For End Of Objective Journalism

 Progressives Label Bill Maher ‘Right Wing’ After CNN Adds Him to Friday Night Programming

Readers know that the Maggie's Farm Fitness for Life regimen includes 2 days (50-70 minutes each) of things we put in the "calisthenics" basket. Basically, moving with exertion without heavy weight (except the Farmer Walks).

I like to think of these routines as supporting agility, athleticism, balance, cardio, etc. Not for muscle-building. 

We've suggested overly-ambitious calis routines in the past. Takes too much time. Here's our (me and Mrs. BD's) current routine. Even sticking to just one or two items each time, it can be hard to put it all into 60 minutes. Mrs. suggested starting from the bottom the next time.

 Calisthenic days:

Warm-up

3 min elliptical
band walks
leg stretches
1 min jumping jacks or jump rope
high-leg walk
floor bicycle 1 min

Circuit 1

Body-weight walking lunges, forwards and backwards
TRX push and pulls
Side box step-ups

Circuit 2

Kettle bell swings
Plank 1-2 min
Farmer Walk, heaviest kettlebell

Circuit 3

Box squats or box jumps
Heavy ball floor slams
1 min row sprint

Final circuit

Mountain-climbers
wall ball slams
5 min hill walk treadmill or stair machine

 The Many Nicknames of the American Woodcock

However tasty these little birds are, I decided to never shoot another one 

 Reading Doesn’t Have to Mean Keeping Your Books Forever

 California's fake water crisis

 Now the Left Is Coming for Your Pickup Trucks, America

London School of Economics cancels words ‘Lent’ and ‘Easter’

Spectator:  The university fighting back against the diversocrats - A professor was fired after a single student complained. Then came the backlash

 University of California Considering Cuts to Grad Student Enrollment Just Weeks After Strike. “Just weeks after the University of California and academic workers heralded historic wage gains in new labor contracts, the question of how to pay for them is roiling campuses”

 Victor Davis Hanson: The Radical Left Is The Establishment

 Prestigious Liberal Watchdog Condemns New York Times' Russiagate Coverage

 The fake think tank that fueled the Russiagate narrative

 Your Taxes Paid Thousands Of Government Staff Covid Unemployment While They Worked From Home

 George Santos: Legend

 Zelensky Sent Out Government Decree to Destroy ALL INFORMATION on Hunter Biden’s Metabiota Company on Same Day as Russian Invasion – Then Fire Spotted Outside Intel Headquarters

In Killington VT

Massive study uncovers how much exercise is needed to live longer

I am skeptical about these claims, but I think life goes much better if you are fit. 

Bear Hibernating Under Deck In Connecticut Gets To Stay

 Whale Corpses Are Stacking Up But the Libs Won't Talk About What Might Be Killing Them

 1 in 8 Americans over 50 show signs of food addiction

 After Killing Abel, Cain Reminds God The True Culprit Is White Supremacy

 Are the COVID Yarns Slowly Beginning to Unravel?

Maybe oxytocin isn't what we thought 

Is anesthesia a risk to the climate? 

Sheesh 

 University Removes Slave-Owning Benefactor's Name, His Family Demands Their $51 Million Back

But the university once owned slaves too 

 Federal Judge Blocks Gavin Newsom’s War Against the Freedom of Speech

(Illegal)  Migrants Refuse to Leave NYC Hotel, Demand Taxpayers Give Them ‘Permanent Homes’

 Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is having a rough time squaring trans ideology with reality

Our friend Gerard Vanderleun has died

 What Progressive Educators Get Wrong About Creativity - Originality requires both knowledge and technical mastery.

Originality is rare, probably overrated. Most of us are lucky just to master the basics.

 Connecticut Parents Arrested for Letting Kids, Ages 7 and 9, Walk to Dunkin' Donuts. "I have never felt threatened by a single person in this town until meeting those officers and the social worker."

 A “mania has taken over academia where every issue, including math, revolves around race and the patriarchy”

 Everyone wants to check a box that doesn’t say “white.”

 AT&T's DirecTV Cancels NEWSMAX in Censorship Move

 History class takes a holiday at The Washington Post

 Removing Congressman Who Slept With Chinese Spy Hurts National Security. "That makes us a less safe country.”

 NYT Editorial Board Member Mara Gay Appears on MSNBC and Melts Down Over Trump Being Reinstated on Social Media

The most-performed opera. I read that it is on stage somewhere in the world every day of the year.

Why? Because nothing has more memorable tunes. Well, the melodrama has power too, and it's a challenging job for whoever plays the floozy Violetta because she gets few breaks from the stage.

150 years since it hit the stage, people still hum the tunes just as the street-sweepers and bartenders did back then.  

The performance below was outdoors, so the characters wear mini-mikes. In an opera house, no mikes. Click on "Watch on Youtube."

I've seen Manta Rays (a variant of Mobulas) leaping while swimming in Bermuda. They get together, presumably for mating. Their leaping is a show of prowess.