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.
"Following a terminal cancer diagnosis, Sister Úna--a smoking, drinking, wisecracking Catholic nun dedicated to mentoring teens--chooses to live life to the fullest in the face of death. The self-proclaimed “leader of the misfits” takes on her last nine months by planning her funeral, tackling her bucket list, and teaching us that death isn’t the end."
31:31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
31:32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.
31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
31:34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
An Ohio friend and I completed a one day winter traverse of the presidential range in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.
The hike is 18 miles long, with a total elevation gain of 10k feet. It begins with a steep four mile approach under trees, ascending above tree-line 4000 feet to the summit of Mt. Madison, traversing and summiting each of president-named peaks, including Mt. Washington in the middle. The weather was clear and sunny, high of 19 degrees F., with 20 - 30 mile an hour winds. But the weather is subject to change, with the days leading up to our weather window seeing 50-70 mph sustained winds with gusts in the 75 -79 range, temperatures in the single digits below zero.
We started around 3 a.m. in Randolph NH and finished a little after 630 p.m. in Crawford Notch. The track was mostly loose snow, exposed ice, exposed rock, with occasional knee to waist deep snow). We had GPS devices and a satellite communication platform for tracking our progress and sending emergency communications, as white out conditions are common. We had snowshoes, but never took off our crampons. (In the days before, we broke the trail four miles on both ends with snowshoes.) There was some fall exposure in the snowfields up Jefferson and on the cone of Washington next to the Great Gulf ravine.
The Wild Outsiders article below describes the climb, logistics, and gear. The photos comprehend most of the above tree-line part of the hike from Jefferson looking at Washington over the Great Gulf ravine from the north (photo # 1), Washington itself (photo #2), then Eisenhower from the south (photo #3). If you zoom in on the photos, you can just make out the approx. 50 ft. high towers on Washington, which gives you an idea of the scale of the traverse.
"A well-built physique is a status symbol. It reflects you worked hard for it, no money can buy it. You cannot inherit it. You cannot steal it. You cannot borrow it. You cannot hold on to it without constant work. It shows dedication. It shows discipline. It shows self-respect. It shows dignity. It shows patience, work ethic, passion.
It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will not come of its own accord.
My great-uncle used to like Haiti for winter vacations. It was a tourist place, like Cuba was.
Like so many places on earth, it's now a gangster place. Call it a "country" if you want to. Nothing new about that. Seems to me that not being a gangster place is the exception.
I've known a couple of Americans who tried to "help" Haitians. They gave up, just like the Clintons did. It has no modern legal structure, same as Somalia or Gaza etc. etc. Lord of the flies.
I happen to love corned beef and cabbage (plus potatoes) - as long as there is plenty of horseradish mustard and beer.
The real name of the meal is New England Boiled Dinner. I cook it all together in a giant pot. If the pickled beef needs a knife, it's underdone. I think it should almost crumble.
I make some for family, including my Irish father-in-law, yearly. No Guiness, though. It really does not go with food in my opinion. Heck, it's a meal in itself. In Irish pubs, they throw one or two raw eggs in it, stir it up, and call it breakfast.
(Our kids are 25% Irish, 25% Southern Italian, 40% English, and 10% Scandinavian probably via the Norman invasion. In other words, all- American. Genetic mongrelization worked well for our kids, cuz I am 90% English, around 10% Scandinavian and thus overly-inbred in New England since the 1600s.)
We had a not-charming drive through Paterson, NJ on Saturday while trying to map out plans for my father-in-law's funeral events.
I told my brother I would not drive through that city (pop 157,000) again without a firearm and/or a police escort. This once entirely safe and prosperous east coast city (like Bridgeport, Hartford, or Waterbury CT) has become a frightening and dangerous place. Filthy too. Garbage on streets, emply storefronts, stumbling addicts, and worse.
OK, I am a privileged white guy with a nice car with out of state plates. It is interesting how quickly these medium-sized cities met their downfalls. I'm not sure I can even blame politicians for it. Economics. Mrs. BD said it's like a 3rd world place and I said it was worse than Haiti. 4th world. Tons of Moslem immigrants, but they are not the problem although I noticed the storefront Moslem places collecting goods for the Palestinians. OK - I get tribalism. Normal. I did not dare take a photo, but I was driving anyway - to Totowa.
There are large parts of New Jersey that are comfortable, even lovely suburban and rural areas, but sheesh. Montclair is very pleasant, and only minutes from NYC by train.
Poet and physician William Carlos Williams wrote his masterpiece Paterson, of which Book 1 is the most worth checking out. It is termed "imagist" writing, but what writing is not?
Of course it did. However, I am a fan of the idea of adults letting their kids hear "classical" music from the earliest. I think it gets the brain used to processing complex music.
Nothing wrong having with folk music either. I think of Pop music, Jazz, Blues as subcategories of folk music.
Best thing? Give kids a chance to learn to sing or play some instruments. Odds are they, like me, have no talent but it's a good thing anyway.
2:2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.
2:3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.
2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us
2:5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--
2:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
2:7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--
2:9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
2:10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
"Goodbye" 
Do not try to explain why St. Patrick's Day is associated with booze. 
Why decluttering your home can save your mental health,