Maggie's Farm

I have always loved Fogerty and Creedence. Green River. There is a small river named that running through a swamp on the farm.

How much of it is vanity, and how much functionality?

It seems clear that if you are fly-fishing for big fish, you might need a decent drag, etc. I have a cheap Cabela's 4-weight reel for small trout on small streams, and for drag, if ever needed, I can just palm it. It's just a line-holder really.

Over time, I have turned against fancy, expensive sporting equipment. What makes a fly reel worth the money?

If you google the question, you get many opinions.

I have often fished for big fish, but never fly-fishing.

Here's one:

Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them.

Lots more here.

Does anybody use bathtubs anymore? I mean, unless they have 1940s-era bathrooms?

I don't mean big Jacuzzis, or outdoor hot tubs, but real old-fashioned bathtubs. Does anybody use them anymore, unless they are just the antique bottom of a nice shower?

Who would want to float in dirty, soapy water?

"Atheists weren’t always as intellectually lazy as Dawkins and his ilk." Atheists Used to Take the Idea of God Seriously. That’s Why They Mattered.

A remarkable article (h/t, reader)

Strange tune

The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles
Dickens

Coolidge by Amity Schlaes

High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery
That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society

76 Fallacies

Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary

From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

The Invention of the Modern World. A sample chapter of that MacFarlane book here.

Generation X Goes to College: An Eye-Opening Account of Teaching in Postmodern America

Dalrymple:  Threats of Pain and Ruin

Althouse posted a cool youtube of Hitchock's cameos.

What a fine fellow he was:

Garlic is one of the most popular flavorings on the planet, and rightly so. There is no point to growing it, because it is so cheap and abundant. Like taters and like pasta. Who would bother growing pasta these days?

Despite not being an Italian "garlic-eater", I love garlic. I am informed that I occasionally reek of it. Too bad. Actually it seems that the Chinese consume the most.

Various garlic types are wild all around the world. I was interested to learn that the handy Elephant Garlic is not really garlic - it's a Leek sort of thing.

"Humming is to marriage as singing is to courtship."

Peter DeVries

No visit to NYC is complete without a little side trip to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. The old Little Italy in downtown Manhattan has mostly been invaded by new Chinese immigrants who have been expanding Chinatown, and the Italians have moved through the tunnel to Jersey. Don't ask me why.

Today, New York's Little Italy is Arthur Avenue in the Fordham area of the Bronx. It's near the lovely Fordham campus, The Bronx Zoo, and the famous and magnificent New York Botanical Garden.

Is it a "safe" neighborhood? Hardly need to ask that about a heavily Italian neighborhood in New York, for several reasons. You do not need to lock your car. Many in the metropolitan area come by just to shop for Italian delicacies.

The restaurants do not take reservations, so you have to plan it out, be early, or wait in line a bit. Lots of folks I know like Roberto. I need to get there soon.

This person documented and photographed her routine shopping outings to Arthur Avenue.

It's happening right now.

Is metaphor a tool, a decoration, or just the way people think and talk?

Grand Affiliations. Aristotle:  "...we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying it is something else.”

They do love my Trumpet Vines. I have a red one too.

Paul's Letter to the Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

 11:1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

 11:2a God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

 11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

 11:30 Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,

 11:31 so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.

 11:32 For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

The 1951 classic (way before my time, but my Dad loved to sing it in the car). Guys do get ideas:

The Female of the Species

When the Himalayan peasant meets the
he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster,
who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends
the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the
careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and
avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where
she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached
to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the
vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors,
turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the
things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him
isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands,
each confirms the other's tale -
The female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations -
worm and savage otherwise, -
Man propounds negotiations,
Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him,
ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even
to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger -
Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue -
to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him,
every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue,
armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue,
lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be
deadlier than the male.

I've been given an education this week on classic, old-timey flower styles via Mrs. BD. I always like to learn new things and I like purty flowers. Who doesn't? Flower design is just ephemeral sculpture and I like seeing and smelling them around the olde HQ. Any old cabin like ours is enlivened by floral productions.

Flowers are reproductive organs.

This is English Garden Style (c. 1920s):

More historical styles below the fold -

Dr. John: Rock's Beloved Wild Card

I enjoy the cranky old SOB

Hopefully Dr. Michael E. Mann Doesn't Sue Me For This Column

Please sue me, Dr. Mann. We'll get more traffic.

Why ‘Deniers’ are Always Wrong – Models can’t be falsified

How do you falsify a computer model?

Bill Bennett Explains Why Better Pot Is Worse and Why Adults Must Be Treated Like Children

Wrong. Drugs are stupid, but freedom allows stupid.

The Internet's Original Sin - It's not too late to ditch the ad-based business model and build a better web

Welch: Depression isn’t a choice but suicide is: my detailed response to the critics

Lose the Camouflage, Please

Seven Reasons Police Brutality Is Systemic, Not Anecdotal

Ferguson residents on CNN: That’s not Michael Brown in the surveillance video

I think it's Elvis

Good Grief: CNBC Wonders If “Climate Change” Is Key To Ebola Spread

Of course it is. Climate change causes everything including foot fungus.

Do the kids today even know what sweat is?

My kids do.

ISIL could pose threat to US, Europe, officials say

So could anybody

Geothermal Fracking Promises Plenty of Energy, Controversy

We like nuke energy

A review of our friend's book: Sheba and Solomon’s Return