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.
This inventive and rollicking organ piece is embedded in Western civilization's collective memory, and cannot help but influence anybody on earth who has attempted to make music since he (we think) composed it. It must be fun to play, especially with the footwork on the pedals:
In recent years, we have had authors and commenters come and go. We're a voluntary commune. (nb: We encourage commenters. Please comment, readers, if you have anything to say even if it's not brilliant. Just show good manners, please. Polite disagreement - with hard facts - is always welcome.)
Our collective favorite Commenter was Marianne Matthews, a wonderfully-reflective Texan, a Barnard grad, a Taurus (the handy-dandy firearm, not the car) owner and a Greenwich Village folksinger in her youth who died in her early 80s with a pulmonary embolism. We miss her. She once mailed me, at my request, a CD of her recordings with a photo of her lovely self playing guitar. She loved NYC, but she loved her Columbia-trained oil-engineer husband more. She always wanted to come back from Houston after he retired, but was responsibly and lovingly caring for him there when I believe he developed a dementia.
Also missing - our old irascible pal Dr. Mercury. No mystery there. He's a ramblin' man, and rambled on to other things after a while (I do not know what) but left behind the useful Dr. Merc's Computer Corner.
Missing in Action: Buddy Larson, a popular and frequent Texan commenter who always brought something to the table, either deep, witty, or usually both. That's a mystery. I hope he is OK, and I hope we didn't do anything to piss him off.
Capt. Tom: He wrote posts for us for a while, but seems to have lost his writing desire. Writer's block? Perhaps the muse might return. I hope so, because he has lots of experience to share, and can write about photography, fishing, boating, engineering, guitars, and all sorts of things if he wants to. Maybe he is too busy living. He does find time to comment on occasion under his real name, Tom Francis. A Yankee, moved to the Carolinas.
Roger de Hauteville? Not to worry. He is around and healthy, but locked in the uninsulated attic for the moment. Those Norman barbarians need time-outs on a regular basis. He'll be back after the next war. In fact, we have planned a job of work for him which naturally involves Sicilia.
Bruce Kesler, our San Diego/New Yorker. He's sort-of on Sabbatical, but he is in touch with me almost daily and (among other emailers) contributes to our morning links, for which I am quite grateful. At some point, I think he may be back on the payroll unless he gets a better offer (he has had many newspaper op-eds published). And he has a day job plus young kids at home. Anyway, always take the better offer if you can get one!
Here's a poor recording of Marianne in New York, in her younger days (1950s), probably in some folkie den in the Village, long before Joanie, Bob, Phil Ochs, Sebastian, and all the others:
The only poverty this girl suffers from is a poverty of the soul–made plain by her obvious disregard for all those who love her and who have sacrificed to give her every advantage in life.
... But Miriam Weeks will never escape the choices she has made, never be able to leave it all behind. Friends, relatives, neighbors, future relationships. These memories and images will live on forever – following her and the ones who love her for the rest of their lives.
Deciphered Roman Soldier’s Papyrus to Family Complains: ‘You Never Wrote Back to Me’
- See more at:
http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/deciphered-roman-soldier-s-papyrus-family-complains-you-never-wrote-back#sthash.5P9I7Zl5.dpuf
John Gardiner's wonderful new Bach bio spent three or four pages on this piece. It's a cantata on death - Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is the very best time) - ending with joy. Bach wrote it at 21. The musical structure and the key changes are complex, and over my head despite reading the pages twice and listening to the lovely and emotional piece around ten times.
Bach was rarely, if ever, satisfied with his singers. He was a singer himself. I suspect that he would be thrilled by the skill of our singers today.
- Thomas Sowell loves Amy Chua's “The Triple Package”. Who knew that Nigerian immigrants did so well?
- Krauthammer's Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics. I am halfway through it, and it is a delight. Not much politics in it, but lots of life, with Charles' impeccable prose. He writes pretty well about baseball, which is one measure of a writer in my view.
- Our friend did a brief trailer for his book about Ethiopian kids in Israel, Sheba and Solomon's Return:
Life insurance benefits can be tax-free. Inheritances over $5.3 million are taxed — with rates going up to 40 percent. That's why the life insurers lobby like crazy to save the estate tax.
Guessing Games And Climate ‘Science’ - They seem so certain when predicting what long-term weather has in store for us, but don't be fooled. Read the fine print in their pronouncements and the truth is revealed: those much-quoted experts admit they don't have a clue
The European Union’s characterization of the Crimean vote to join Russia as “undemocratic” is laced with stunning hypocrisy given that the EU ignored its own citizens when they rejected the European Constitution on numerous occasions.
“The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject,” Tolkien insisted. “He is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones.” Thus, Tolkien advised his young son, then 21, that the sexual fantasies of the 20th century were demonic lies, intended to ensnare human beings. Sex was a trap, Tolkien warned, because human beings are capable of almost infinite rationalization in terms of sexual motives. Romantic love is not sufficient as a justification for sex, Tolkien understood.
Taking the point further, Tolkien warned his son that “friendship” between a young man and a young woman, supposedly free from sexual desire, would not remain untroubled by sexual attraction for long. At least one of the partners is almost certain to be inflamed with sexual passion, Tolkien advised. This is especially true among the young, for Tolkien believed that such friendships might be possible later in life, “when sex cools down.”
Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing Co. builds fine firearms in the state which is historically known for firearms. They also sell guns from other manufacturers, and have a cool store in New Britain, CT.
Pic is of their fancy shooting/travel bags. Nice stuff, but too fancy for me. I carry ammo and gear in a waxed canvas bag. I'd take one as a gift, though. When you think about it, a woman's pocketbook is really a shooting bag adapted for women's uses.
...with the advent of the railroad, bags were about to experience a revolution. In 1843, there were nearly 2000 miles of railway lines in Great Britain. As more people traveled by train and more women became more mobile, professional luggage makers turned the skills of horse travel into those for train travel, and soon the term “handbag” emerged to describe these new hand-held luggage bags. Indeed, many of the top names of today's handbags got their start as luggage makers (in contrast to the previously made purses and pouches which were made by dressmakers). For example, Hermes bags were founded in 1837 by Thierry Hermes, a harness and saddle maker, while Louis Vuitton was a luggage packer for the Parisian rich. Modern handbags still allude to luggage with their pockets, fastenings, frames, locks, and keys.
Red-baiting was one of the more fantastic inventions of the left. Suddenly pointing out that someone was a member of a mass murdering ideology bent on world conquest… was worse than actually being a member of that ideology.
Red-baiting was tacky, hateful and everything that enlightened people didn’t want to be. It was perfectly all-right for a Communist to say he was one. It was alright for an admiring fellow traveler to say it. But not for anyone who thought that mass enslavement and murder under the red flag were bad things.
Red-baiting gave the Marxists and Communists immunity from criticism. Questioning their politics had become worse than their actual politics.
The evening comes, the fields are still The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the half-mown plain, Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, The mower's cry, the dog's alarms, All housed within the sleeping farms! The business of the day is done The last-left haymaker is gone. And from the thyme upon the height, And from the elder-blossom white And pale dog-roses in the hedge, And from the mint-plant in the sedge, In puffs of balm the night-air blows The perfume which the day forgoes. And on the pure horizon far, See, pulsing with the first-born star, The liquid sky above the hill! The evening comes, the fields are still. Loitering and leaping, With saunter, with bounds-- Flickering and circling In files and in rounds-- Gaily their pine-staff green Tossing in air, Loose o'er their shoulders white Showering their hair-- See! the wild Maenads Break from the wood, Youth and Iacchus Maddening their blood. See! through the quiet land Rioting they pass-- Fling the fresh heaps about Trample the grass. Tear from the rifled hedge Garlands, their prize; Fill with their sports the field, Fill with their cries. Shepherd, what ails thee, then? Shepherd, why mute? Forth with thy joyous song! Forth with thy flute! Tempts not the revel blithe? Lure not their cries? Glow not their shoulders smooth? Melt not their eyes? Is not, on cheeks like those, Lovely the flush? --Ah, so the quiet was! So was the hush!
A medical friend of mine has been working here (video)
"Do unto others..." The Christians loved - and touched - this guy. Love that goes around - it doesn't matter whether it comes back around or not but, in some ways, it's more wonderful when it doesn't. We Christians are taught to give of ourselves, and not to take, as a way of life. The capacity to be reflectors of divine grace: that is the "life in abundance" which was promised.
New dinosaur 
Here's How 
Most likely? 
‘Is this a joke?’ Salon writer asks:
Here's an online magazine some readers will enjoy: