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.
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day - A sunny day with leaves just turning, The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play Your first game of football, then, like a satellite Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see You walking away from me towards the school With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free Into a wilderness, the gait of one Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem, Has something I never quite grasp to convey About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.
I have had worse partings, but none that so Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly Saying what God alone could perfectly show - How selfhood begins with a walking away, And love is proved in the letting go.
17:22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.
17:23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,
17:25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
17:26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,
17:27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him--though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
17:28 For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'
17:29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
17:30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
17:31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
It's fish migration season up here. I was checking out the regulations for Striped Bass on the Atlantic coast.
Locals know that a license for salt-water fishing is now required. The regs on Striped Bass have changed too over recent years. Most recreational fishermen practice catch and release. After all, a good bass will feed 10 people and you don't have ten people coming for supper tonight. If you want to take one home, the Bass needs to be over 25" and under 35". The latter is to protect the big breeding females.
Best fishing for Stripers is night or early morning.
The unfortunte reality is that maybe only half of released catches survive the ordeal. Lots of reasons for that.
However, despite the excellent sport, that's why I only pursue Stripers twice a season.
Easy, moderate, and difficult. We stuck with Moderate mostly. The moderates generally have no more than 4-500' ups and downs. 100s of miles of interlocking trails, fairly well-marked but not always so you need the trail maps. April seems like the best time, when all of the high desert (above 4000') plants are in bloom and the high mid-day temps are in the mid 70s.
Hiking poles and grippy boots are handy. Around that altitude, oxygen is not what it is at sea level (around 17%).
Sedimentary formations, red sandstone and limestone. Animals? Mule Deer and Collared Peccary. One rattler crossed the trail. Birds? That's another topic.
Posting a few pics. Only from the easy parts, because they are the only places I could safely grab my iphone while trying to keep up with our pals. We stayed at a very comfortable resort-type-thing.
Website now turns my vertical pics into horizontal. Annoying. From our deck - that's a seasonally dry stream with cottonwoods in the foreground. See my moon shot?
The American Medical Association, the American Association of Medical Colleges and the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) have all agreed that medicine is racist.
Good book, lots of pictures. What a crazy time. No good, decent guys in the story.
Some interesting things I have learned from it thus far:
- "Assasin" was the Europeanized word for Hashimi - the fundmentalist Shi'ites fueled by hashish. Hated the Sunnis. - The Moslem Jerusalem had been full of Christians and Jews too. Tolerant. Until the Crusaders killed them all including the Christians who lived there. - In the 1000s, any pilgrim could take a boat to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. No problem. No reason to march overland and fight every fortified city. - The Middle East had constant warfare before and after. Turks, Emirs, Moslems, etc.
Compared to their Mid-western and Central American relations, the Northeastern American Indians led primitive and scattered lives until agricultural society was imported from Central America around 1300-1400.
The Transgender Follies—More Madness from the Left - The transgender craze, like the word itself, is new, dangerous to the persons involved, and hasn’t a shred of evidence to support it.
May is bird migration season up here in New England. That Sound ID called Merlin has changed my life. It is 90+ percent accurate, and even labels a Mockingbird's song imitations as Mockingbird.
Sure, I can ID most local warblers and vireos if I get a good look, but usually you don't feel like straining your neck for hours. One trick an older guy I know used to use is to lie on the ground under a big old oak tree with mini-binoculars (the kind we use for opera).
Below the fold, some of what Merlin heard with me early this morning near the shore (most confirmed with eyes too, or just seen). Gotta get out early for some of this:
What Ancient Roman Sex Was Actually Like -- 
It's fish migration season up here. I was checking out the regulations for Striped Bass on the Atlantic coast.
A Mixture of Pride and Shame - 
May is bird migration season up here in New England. That