Maggie's FarmWe 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. |
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Monday, January 6. 2020Monday morning linksA first-time flier who threw coins into a plane engine for good luck has been ordered to pay £13,000 to a Chinese airline. We missed this: Kanye Takes Sunday Service to Texas Prisons in Surprise Event The Collegiate War Against Men Ice Ages are rare in the earth's history. We're in one now PRAGER: Greta Thunberg: A Living Explanation Of The Left Maxine Waters’ Phone Call With ‘Greta Thunberg’ Was Apparently The Work Of Russian Pranksters Thoughts On The Latest US Census Data "We Cannot Stop Violent Crime Through Policing Alone" Says Mayor of Murder Capital Baltimore County Homicides Jump 85% To Record High Amid Spillover In City Murder Crisis Colin Kaepernick Blasts Racist ‘American Terrorist Attacks’ In Apparent Reference To Iran Trump Blamed For Causing Violence In Typically Peaceful Middle East Ricky Gervais Slams Elitist Celebs At the Golden Globes: 'You're In No Position to Lecture the Public About Anything' The United States killed the top terrorist on the planet Thursday, and Democrats were…upset. Perhaps “upset” is too vague, they were a combination of angry and scared. U.S. Media Says Iraqis ‘Mourning’ Death Of Terrorist, But Some Seem To Be Dancing, Baking Cakes In Celebration How Trump decided to kill Iran’s Soleimani - The U.S. strike against Tehran’s feared paramilitary commander followed months of Iranian attacks. Meet the Other Major Terrorist Killed in Soleimani Drone Strike BIDEN REWRITES HISTORY Biden Caught In 'Flat-Out Lie' Over Bin Laden Raid Democratic Impeachment Case Collapses Under Weight Of Time Iran Is Not Iraq For reasons not difficult to ascertain Hong Kong is dying. BoJo contemplates fulfilling a dream dear to half of Britain War With Iran? The United States has preferred toothless sanctions over victory. But sometimes the right sanctions are deadlier than atom bombs. Sunday, January 5. 2020Groundcherries
One of my daughters likes to give me cool seeds for Christmas. Connecticut Field Pumpkins, Heritage Cukes, etc. Of course, the hassle is starting them indoors without a greenhouse. (I need one. My friend's wife had a nice one with heat, light, etc and she kept tropical lizards in it too, to eat bugs and spiders. Problem was, the small ones tended to escape outside in the summer when the vents opened so they had a good adventure of freedom until the first frost.) We told you about Mouse Melons (aka Mexican Gherkins) in a past post. They are great, grow like weeds, perfect in salads or just to munch in the garden. It seems the fun trial for this year will be Ground Cherries. We'll see. I guess they are in the nighshade family.
From today's Lectionary: In the beginning was the wordJohn 1:(1-9), 10-18 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 1:2 He was in the beginning with God. 1:3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 1:7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 1:8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 1:10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 1:11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 1:12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 1:13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. 1:15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") 1:16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 1:17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known. Saturday, January 4. 2020Saturday morning linksMy question of the day: Why are Iranian troops, militias, and terrorists in Iraq? Amazon sale on workout clothing (h/t Helen at Insty) What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane? Five years ago, the flight vanished into the Indian Ocean. Officials on land know more about why than they dare to say. The Strange 21st-Century Sexual Marketplace No Sex, Please, We’re American All Weather Now Bears The Fingerprints Of You Eating A Burger For Lunch Or Something Rutgers student told not to quote Bible in essay because of 'separation of church and state' New York leaders’ lame excuses for the Empire State population drop NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s First 2020 Priority Was to Declare War on $30 Pizzas New York's Wind Turbine Catastrophe is the Green New Deal in Action Please America, take Meghan Markle back. She has dragged across the Atlantic a garbage truck full of the most emetic US wokeness 2019: The Left Goes Over the Edge Progressives' Greatest Hits of 2019 Team Trump’s big blow to the college cartel Trump Just Killed One Of The Most Dangerous Terrorists In The World, And Democrats Are Upset About It Democrats Call For Flags To Be Flown At Half-Mast To Grieve Death Of Soleimani From the one real news source left CNN Reports The Most Important Thing About Soleimani Attack: Trump Had Ice Cream After When Obama made a deal with Solemani Trump list shows 319 'results' and promises kept in three years Sharyl Attkisson chronicles 109 negative media Trump stories that turned out to be false A Scorecard on the First Decade after the Arab Spring Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s Unique Regional Strategy
Saturday Verse: Wallace StevensSunday Morning I Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. II Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. III Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. IV She says, “I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured As April’s green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow’s wings. V She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. VI Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. VII Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest. VIII She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings. Friday, January 3. 2020Friday morning linksHigh-School Wrestling Was Fading. Then Came The Girls. Oxford Historian On The 1619 Project: ‘A Preposterous And One-Dimensional Reading’ Of American History From TNR: When “Biology” Becomes a Cover for Anti-Trans Bigotry - How an employment case in the United Kingdom revealed the ugly contours of anti-trans discrimination Expert: Half of UK Farmland Must Be Abandoned DeVos restores fairness to campus sexual misconduct cases - A survey suggests that attempts to address sexual assault on campus, although well intentioned, have done so at the expense of fairness, and, in many cases, the truth. U.S. jobless claims dip to 222,000 to end 2019 back near a half-century low Literally the first word that WaPo prints in 2020 is a lie. Joy Reid Calls Attack on US Embassy in Baghdad “Trump’s Benghazi” – Don Jr. Drops in and Sets Her Straight Joe Biden’s Latest Ad About Trump Is a Complete Lie MSNBC: By Bombing Hezbollah, Trump Is Bombing ‘War Heroes’… America just took out the world’s no. 1 bad guy This Is Not 1979, And Donald Trump Is Not Jimmy Carter USA Today Op-Ed: It Is 'Terrifying' Other Parishioners Were Armed During Texas Church Shooting The Fundamental Legitimacy of Donald Trump - The democracy-is-doomed crowd was wrong. Trump’s tyranny has never materialized. Even CNN Is Calling out Chuck Schumer’s Impeachment Trial ‘Impartiality’ Hypocrisy The United States as a Developing Nation Scandinavia: Can The New “Parental Team” Replace Marriage? Boris Johnson’s Victory and the Political Realignment Shaking Western Democracies Former Google executive Ross LaJeunesse blasts company’s work in China - ‘Just when Google needed to double down on a commitment to human rights, it decided to instead chase bigger profits and an even higher stock price’ 'This is the shareholders' money': Billionaire Warren Buffett argues that companies should stop making decisions based on their social beliefs Kim Jong Un, Choose Your Future He can't - he is China's pawn Maximum Pressure on Iran Is Working. That’s Why It’s Lashing Out. Let’s Keep It Up. With pro-Iran groups at helm, Iraq 'risks becoming pariah' Thursday, January 2. 2020Thursday morning linksIs Notre-Dame Too Fragile to Be Saved? The cathedral’s rector says there is a “50 percent chance” that scaffolding will collapse, causing further damage Policing Parents and Kids: The Year's 8 Most Paranoid Moments - And five examples of parents wisely letting their kids go—and grow. History Without Truth - The 1619 Project has been thoroughly discredited, but many professional historians remain reluctant to criticize it.
Two tribes aren’t recognized federally. Yet members won $500 million in minority contracts How Cognitive Bias Destroyed the Livelihood of California’s Gig Workers. We ignore the intelligence trap at our own peril.
Related, 2019 Was Another One Of Those Tough Years For The "Experts" The Most Absurd PC Moments of the 2010s Two Professors at University of Wisconsin – La Crosse Are Leading the Way on ‘Fat Studies’ If at least 1/2 of Americans are fat, it hardly seems like an oppressed minority. It's normal in the USA. Some commentators are telling us that we never had it so good. They are even saying that the world never had it so good. FREE STUFF, DEMOCRATIC PARTY STYLE Turns Out, Trump’s ‘Evil’ ICE Raids Benefited American Workers House Ethics Complaint Filed Against Rep. Omar Get Ready for a Nasty 2020 Presidential Campaign New York Times finally comes back to admitting Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election Unable to find new fake news, Vox editor recycles old fake news Democrat Rep. Al Green Admits ‘Genesis of Impeachment Was… When Trump Was Running For Office’ The "Afghanistan Papers" and the delusions of nation-building Why It’s Time To Shut Down The Scandal-Plagued U.N. Palestinian Refugee Program Wednesday, January 1. 2020Pabst Beer RunA long beer run.
New Year's Day linksRIP: The Historian of Moral Revolution - Gertrude Himmelfarb argued that a great deal is lost when a society stops aiming for civic virtue and is content to aim merely for civility. The Lost History Of The ‘City’ Of Brooklyn. It was once outshone by Manhattan, but this new book rediscovers New York's most interesting borough. Anti-Semitism isn't about your political narrative It’s America for the Commoners! Get Used to It, Wokies! Three Years In, No Sign Of Trump’s Replacement For ObamaCare A Retrospective on The Past Four Years of Fake News Trump Hysteria Chuck Todd Suggests That Trump Voters 'Wanna Be Lied to' Because Noah's Ark or Something NYT Reporter Implies Conservative Media Made Black Man Stab Hasidic Jews NY Times Plays Defense for Iran: Claims Thousands of Organized Iranian al-Quds Thugs Storming US Embasssy in Iraq are Grieving “Mourners” Mike Bloomberg targets doctors for racial 'reeducation' If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart? Buttigieg Tells Schoolkids American Founders ‘Did Not Understand Slavery Was A Bad Thing.’ He Gets Slammed For His Ignorance. VDH: Impeachment Fallouts How Not to Argue with Bill Barr The ‘Deep State’ and the Impeachment Conspiracy - What did John Brennan know and when did he know it? We Were Warned About The Deep State, But Refused To Listen John Durham Is Investigating Deep State Coup Plotter John Brennan, and Other Deep State Coup Supporters Are "Concerned" Hunter Biden Accused of $156M Counterfeiting Scheme With Burisma, CrowdStrike, Legal Filing Claims Analysis: Trump gained little ground this year in China trade war Fine with me. They are bad people. 'Shattered': Inside the secret battle to save America's undercover spies in the digital age The U.S.-Iran Showdown Begins in Iraq - America hits Ktaib Hezbollah, one of Tehran’s most effective militias. Fighting the Demonization of Israel at the International Criminal Court Turkey’s Libyan Gambit Reveals Erdogan's Delusions of Grandeur Book review: The Secret Files of the Soviet Union - Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western Complicity by Vladimir Bukovsky, translated from the Russian by Alyona Kojevnikov Tuesday, December 31. 2019Got a fun 5-hour hike planned for tomorrow?For after the morning workout, of course. We do. I bet Bulldog does too. I suspect Dr. Bliss has a paddle tournament tomorrow, which sounds fun. Paddle is cool, but my right shoulder can't do overheads anymore, so I am out.
Tuesday morning linksPhoto from a friend in Yucca Valley this week Your Bedroom Is Too Hot Intermittent Fasting: Live ‘Fast,’ Live longer? Healthiest people tend to be small eaters Accessibility, Ableism, and the Decline of Excellence UNESCO: Unmaking the world's literature Clint Eastwood Portrays the American Greatness of Ordinary Americans Extinction Rebellion Founder Confirms That Global Warming Is Voodoo Science Why 2019 has been the best year in human history Chuck Todd Attacks Religious People Surely California Has Done Away With Racism By Now The mass murder that didn’t happen because Texans are smarter than New Yorkers, Californians and progressives everywhere CNN: House Dems Implying “They Didn’t Have Enough Evidence,” Dems Just Want To Impeach From Understanding Dems' March Toward Electoral Defeat List of things Trump has done for America Germany Puts Its Head in Russia's Energy Pipeline Noose Soros’ War Against the Jews - The shame, hatred and megalomania driving the world’s wealthiest anti-Semite Monday, December 30. 2019Trainer on vacationMonday is a weights day, so I did my best to kick my own ass with a mix of things. With trainer I would do barbell squats and bench. I want to inspire our readers... 4 sets of goblet squats (instead of barbell squats) Yes, I do them in various supersets. I felt pretty beat-up at the end, ready for a ten-minute nap at 6:30 am before work. Pushing oneself to the max is the hard part for me, the mental part. I never feel like doing any of it until I get in the cage to fight the bear. Some of you know what I mean. The bear is one's own sloth. Sloth is a sin, by the way, so it's worth resisting like other disgusting temptations. I do try to turn my back on sinful temptations. Not a saint, tho. Monday morning linksThe $100 billion reason not to return gifts this holiday season - 90% of products returned during the holidays won’t be resold—and some will end up in a landfill. Online sales tax ruling challenges small businesses ‘Little Women’ Is Just ‘Too White,’ Critic Says Madrid goes bonkers for waffle willies Ancient humans procreated with at least four other species. In 2019, the human family tree got a little more complicated. NYT Cuts Controversial Study From Bret Stephens’ ‘Jewish Genius’ Column Everybody knows that Jews tend to be smart Five years on, the lessons from the Rolling Stone rape story A book: Stand Down: How Social Justice Warriors Are Sabotaging America's Military Tales of the Deplorables - For decades, Richard Russo has written about the blue-collar residents of small towns left behind by the American economy. Virginia increasing corrections budget anticipating jailing gun-owners Biden Attacked Texas Governor For Signing Law Letting Churchgoers Carry Guns: ‘Totally Irrational’ California Shocked To Find Bill Decriminalizing Retail Theft Resulted In… More Retail Theft If This Has Been Super-Decade, Why Are We Still so Angry? I'm not angry Here’s A List Of Hoax ‘Hate Crimes’ In The Trump Era Yale Psychiatrist Who ‘Diagnosed’ Trump As Unfit Has Dirty Secret That’s Just Been Exposed Michael Moore: You Should Be Afraid Of White Guys, Because 2/3 Of Them Voted For Trump So did more than 1/2 of white women, so fear them too Suck it, doomsayers! The past decade was the best ever WE NOW KNOW: IT’S A MAD, MAD MADDOW — AND BEYOND Williamson still doesn't like Trump No good reasons Turley: Testifying for Republicans should not be a sin for academics THE GENEALOGY OF FREE STUFF: THE TRUMP CARD INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION: Two Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping, and Neither Is Good. Sunday, December 29. 2019The sermon in fullWe posted a bit of it a few days ago, but here's the entire excellent thing. Speaking with no notes, mind you:
Legal essay on campus justiceFrom today's Lectionary: Praise the LordPsalm 148 148:1 Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights! 148:2 Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host! 148:3 Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! 148:4 Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! 148:5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created. 148:6 He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed. 148:7 Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, 148:8 fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! 148:9 Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! 148:10 Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds! 148:11 Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! 148:12 Young men and women alike, old and young together! 148:13 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven. 148:14 He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the LORD! Saturday, December 28. 2019Saturday morning linksDon Imus, RIP Enjoyed his radio show on and off for years. Stubbornly refused treatment for his prostate cancer - chose herbal treatments. Nordstrom's Bans 85-Year-Old Salvation Army Bell Ringer Hard to believe, but true What any of this has to do with “A Christmas Carol,” God only knows. Weather: Failed Serial Doomcasting Court Upholds Obama's Atlantic Ocean Monument The FBI’s FISA Frauds - Until this scandal is addressed squarely the FBI’s reputation will remain mud. Rachel Maddow Called Out By WaPo Columnist For Shamelessly Peddling Fake News David Brooks: The media is broken The guy lives in a bubble Billboards Pop Up Around Virginia Amid Second Amendment Uprising: Bloomberg Gun Confiscation Starts In 2 Weeks Two More Virginia Counties Declare Themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries, Making Ninety One Percent of Counties in Rebellion Against Democrat Gun Confiscation Sheesh, like the Whiskey Rebellion Bernie Sanders is starting to scare them How about Bernie vs. Biden? Trump’s Economy Keeps Tripping Up Democrats - The data and consumer sentiment are on the president’s side. Gaetz: I ‘Believe’ Dems When They Say They Aren’t Done Investigating Impeachment I predict four more years of it ISIS terrorists mark Christmas by beheading 10 Christians on video When all of the evidence is collected together, it is as if Amnesty has declared war on Israel - Researcher David Collier sets out the findings from his new 200-page report on the NGO The blood-dimmed tide - Syrian chaos reflects the conclusive breakdown of the post Cold War regional order. Saturday verse for a new year: Max EhrmannDesiderata Go placidly amid the noise and haste, Speak your truth quietly and clearly; Avoid loud and aggressive persons, Keep interested in your own career, however humble; Be yourself. Take kindly the counsel of the years, You are a child of the universe, Therefore be at peace with God, With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952. Friday, December 27. 2019Waiting in Yankeeland - on Christmas EveThe BD HQ late Tuesday afternoon, awaiting our gals to arrive from the big city to put the decorations on the tree with a bit of help from my father-in-law and some bourbon eggnog. Our lad and his brood tomorrow. No fireplace fires until after candlelight church. I do not like to leave a house with a blaze. Cozy and Yankee-style, I feel. I love this old-timey farmhouse space. One daughter can handle the piano pretty well, and Mrs. BD is a hacker but can bang out a carol or tune when needed. Just takes her a minute or two to get it right.
Friday morning linksImpossible burgers are made of what? Don’t Buy Ring Or Other Home Surveillance Devices For Anyone, Ever World’s oldest forest found in New York state - The 385-million-year-old fossils show that trees evolved modern features millions of years earlier than previously estimated. Relocation Subsidies Can Help Workers and Struggling Regions As More Evidence Implicates Vitamin E Acetate in Lung Injuries, the Press Continues to Blame E-Cigarettes That Don't Contain It Males Are Faring Much Worse Than Females: Busting the Myth of Male Privilege in a Single Chart Embattled union honchos’ lavish spending exposed: Villas, four-figure dinners, $60,000 cigar bill Carbon Tax: the Big City 'Incentivizes' Rural Vermonters On the idea that the Hallmark Channel is fascist and totalitarian Deplorables Versus the Ruling Class: A Global Struggle Why Conservatives Should Take Their Fight To The Cities 2019 Man of the Year: Kellyanne Conway’s Husband The New York Times Reveals the Real Reason Why Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Can’t Gain Traction Look at All the Media Figures Who Lied to Us About the Carter Page FISA Warrants and the Steele Dossier Historian Doug Wead: Every Foreign Intelligence Service Knew within 24 Hours Trump-Russia Collusion was Bogus Story CBC Cuts Donald Trump's 'Home Alone 2' Cameo Out of Broadcast WaPo: The True Meaning Of Christmas Is That Trump Is Terrible BBC Video: It’s Merry Impeachment, Not Merry Christmas, America Salon Feminazi: ‘Merry Christmas!’ Is Conservative Code For ‘F*ck You!’ Turkey’s Erdogan: Europe ‘Will Feel’ New Migrant Wave Brussels Chaos: Spain Follows Poland In Shock Threat To Quit EU Thursday, December 26. 2019Making urban America work: A fascinating longish read about NYC's Penn StationThis Is Why Your Holiday Travel Is Awful - The long, sordid history of New York’s Penn Station shows how progressives have made it too hard for the government to do big things—and why, believe it or not, Robert Caro is to blame.
Thursday afternoon links" CREATING THE NEW IGNORANCE”: A CHRISTMAS DAY IDYLL WITH C.S. LEWIS On Christmas, a heart surgeon and his family offer a different kind of healing at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center Notre Dame Cathedral only has 50% chance of being saved after fire: rector Phone Trump. He can fix anything. Upside-Down World: Kanye West Preaches The Gospel As Pope Francis Tells People Not To Evangelize Ram Dass: Another Ghost from My Youth Why Guys Should Steer Clear of Impossible Whoppers Angry Tears Flow As Politicians Fail To Stop “Climate Darkness” In Madrid Why I quit Twitter — and you should, too Virginia Governor Northam Increases Corrections Budget In Anticipation Of Jailing Gun Owners Democrat Lawmakers From Virginia Call for General Robert E. Lee Statue to be Removed From U.S. Capitol The Corruptions of Power - Will former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power ever learn? Hunter Biden Allegedly The Subject Of Multiple Criminal Investigations House Democrats Mull Second Impeachment WE NOW KNOW: DEVIN NUNES REFLECTS British Ex-Spy Christopher Steele Shared More Anti-Trump Fake Conspiracy Theories With the FBI Isis in Iraq: Militants 'getting stronger again' Idiots. Not my problem. Trump Moves the Ball on China Trade - Thoughts on “phase one” of the administration’s evolving agreement with Beijing Life in America: Boxing Day
Boxing Day is the traditional day to be generous to all those who help us during the year. We give $ to the garbage man, the mailman, the cleaning gals, and of course to my 4:45 AM regular Dunkin guy who works the night shift at my 24-hr Dunkin. These folks appreciate being shown our appreciation. The docs just get fruit baskets. They are health nuts, believe in eating fruits and nuts. I do not, much, although I will go for a pear or an apple pie. I hope our readers had a blessed Christmas or a happy Hannukah. The BD clan did have a classic Yankeeland one. Life in America: Perfect candlelight service about Grace and Truth, an early Christmas morning family workout at the gym, scrambled eggs with salmon (and pannetone of course - very Yankee), then the girls entertained us with Christmas carol duets with one's new guitar and the other's new keyboard for her apartment in NYC. Gosh, I love family music no matter how imperfect. One of my daughters sings like an angel, the other like a Screech Owl. Son can't sing a lick and neither can I. Then a "hike" to the countryside, and, finally home, the kids made us filet with roasted sweet potatoes and sauteed brussel sprouts while my father-in-law dozed by the fire with a glass of rare 25 year-old single malt whiskey which tastes like candy. They cleaned up everything too. Always do. Daughter was still practicing a Mendelssohn piece when I retired for the evening, banging away by a merry fire with an assortment of 4-letter words. This morning was a heavy weights day, so I had to be rested and ready. She's a Mendelssohn gal, I'm a Schubert guy but Mendelssohn second. I want my guitar daughter to work on country blues, but kids do what they will do. They have their own minds and directions...for better or worse. Tuesday, December 24. 2019Best night of the yearPavarotti from Notre Dame. Place is closed this year for the first time in centuries.
Christmastime in Manhattan
To add to the jollity are the cheerful crowds in midtown. These people, opposite the Tree, are watching the stunning light show on the walls of Saks. Literally nobody had shopping bags - people just loving the vitality and fun. Secular or religious, it's not about shopping. Love this place for vitality, the country for serenity and manual labor. 'Twas a late night for us - but your Editor made it to the gym this morning before work. Like y'all did.
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