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.
Do boys still learn to box at the local Boy's Club? Man, I hated to get hit but I liked the hitting. Do Boy's Clubs still exist? Are they even legal? Teddy Roosevelt's stories about boxing as a child are hilarious. He was determined, despite asthma, to toughen up. He did.
A bad bad war, crazy. I mostly blame Lincoln but, in general, the northern Republicans. Any union ought to be voluntary. Slavery? That was going away anyway in the Western world. Today, we would say "negotiate." Result? 600,000 Americans dead, and a federal government with more power than it was ever intended to possess.
Tragic, all around. Liberia was a good solution and a good recompense, but I am glad for most of the African-American influence in American culture. Better off here than slaves of Moslems in Africa, but better if none of it ever happened.
“It might be more harmful to consume lots of carbohydrates than saturated fats. If you fear cardiovascular diseases, most types of fats are better than carbs,” says the professor. Svihus thinks that in the worst case all the focus on taking fats out of the diet might have raised risks for heart disease. This is because we drop fats and exchange them with a lot of carbohydrates.
Politico: "As I noted last month with a link to an AEI infographic, if Clinton patiently endures her falls from public popularity she’s almost always rewarded with a rise."
It’s easy to dismiss Greece as a dead beat country full of oily grifters. In theory, the Greek people have only themselves to blame for electing crooks and liars. That’s an argument against democracy, but the people never voted for bankruptcy. They were misled by their leaders, who got hooked on the heroin of global finance. They supported joining the Euro because they were told it would avoid these problems.
Get all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum...iPhone pic sent from a BD daughter yesterday from the Muir Woods in Mill Valley. A magnificent country, isn't it?
A Teddy Roosevelt quote: "When I am here in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West."
I'd say it's a handy expression, or query, or response, for the verbal toolbox, but it does not work as a response to many pleasant things (eg, "Mrs. Sippican, would you like some Strawberry Shortcake?" or "Mrs. Sippican, would you, the Mr., and the boys like to take a ride to Nice on my new G6 for a week at my villa in Cap d'Antibe?").
Oh,
look, some Libertarians are having a few second thoughts about the
goals of gay activists post-Obergefell - See more at:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=57212#sthash.Rwa9T2B8.dpuf
Liberals/progressives talk incessantly about racism, yet there are spectacularly few examples of the phenomenon, so they pounce on every conceivable black-white interaction–think Ferguson and Baltimore–even if the facts don’t support their immoral, divisive accusations.
Let's sweep away the lies and just say it out loud:
90% of the left's attempts at social control are simply attempt to outlaw behaviors they perceived as favored or engaged in by 'traditional" "conservative" "old-school" "white" etc. people. Thus, a liberal can simultaneously demand that cigarettes be outlawed but marijuana be legalized.
Why? Because (in their conception of social reality) marijuana is a leftist intoxicant favored by the "counter-culture" while nicotine is a right-wing intoxicant favored by the "dominant culture."
"The Man" smokes cigars. "The Rebels" smoke weed.
That's all there is to it.
...It's absolute juvenile revenge fantasy, leftover from the '60s. That's all it is. The younger generation of activist are automatons acting out the revenge fantasies of their professors.
I've been there. Interesting place. Good food. Aggressive salesmen in the souk. A brief clip of the souk in Tunis. Fun place, not mainly meant for tourists.
Poached salmon with yoghurt dill sauce is one of our standards for bringing as our contribution to outdoor summer dinner parties. Asparagus is good on the side. Everybody loves it.
We also use this as our large group Christmas Eve after-church suppers for whoever is lucky enough to be invited to our place for supper around the fireplaces, with the tree (Christmas Eve requires seafood, and you can do this in the afternoon so it's ready when you get home.) One or two of those huge Costco filets, depending on numbers, is good to poach. Easy to do.
Recipe here. We poach the large filets intact and present them on a large tray. It's more appealing that way.
Saturday was New Haven, Sunday was NYC. Ah, Les Tres Riches Heures du Bird Dog. We went with dear friends to see DanceBrazil at the Joyce, then for early supper to the enjoyable and authentic Sicilian specialty restaurant Bar Eolo on 7th Ave. (Ask me for menu tips.)
We hadn't realized it was the day of the Gay Pride march on the West Side. By the time we sat down for supper outside, swarms - thousands - of gays were moving back uptown from their destination which I think had been the West Village. "Hi, Happy Pride!" Anyway, it made for some entertaining and curious people-watching. I told Mrs. BD that my Mom would have loved that scene which seems exotic to me. My question was why and how do so many gays (male or female) look gay. No Gaydar required, believe me. It's, like, obvious.
I suspect my buddy expected me as a wacko Christian conservative (ie Evil Right Wing Nazi) to be hostile or uncomfortable. Naw. Christians get a kick (mostly) out of all of God's creation. It was just strange, and a colorful spectacle. I can say that we four felt like aliens from a straight bourgeois planet - which was fine. Overall, fun. Do male gays add more to life than those grim-looking lesbians with their fat girlfriends? I tend to think so. However, I saw a handful of those lesbian marchers whose feminine charms, IMO, were going to waste and I said so.
DanceBrazil was something else. Mrs. BD gave me some words: Muscular, acrobatic, quick, primitive, full-body dancing. She said they were all ballet-trained, but probably lifted weights too. These men and women are seriously strong. Exhausting to watch because of the intense physicality. Very good, high-energy high-intensity stuff. Here's a clip from them a couple of years ago.
Also, a few random pics below the fold - but none of the gay parade people really.
We live in a world where Bobby Jindal is a fake Indian, but it’s racist to say an older white woman isn’t a real one (the correct term being “Native American,” of course). Nikki Haley is a villain for “suppressing” her Indian roots, but Sen. Ted Cruz is a fraud for touting his Cuban roots. (Cruz was recently grilled by Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin about how authentically Cuban he really is. At least Halperin later apologized).
It is true that blood cholesterol has nothing to do with arterial disease or heart disease but you can still find physicians checking peoples' cholesterol. I take my Lipitor not for trigycerides but because it seems to prevent heart attacks by some other kind of magic.
Medical and non-medical erroneous or pseudoscientific enthusiasms can last a generation because they infect the culture. Red meat and salt-avoidance, for examples. The 8 Stages of Scam
I recently saw a relative get into big trouble by believing the old "salt is bad" admonition. Skepticism is the best default setting in life.
The Greeks, more even than the Romans, show us how to question received opinion and authority. The earliest myths reveal mankind actively disputing the terms on which the Olympian gods want to rule them, and the philanthropic god Prometheus rebelling against Zeus in order to steal fire – a divine prerogative – and give it to mortal men. Sophocles’ Antigone refuses to accept her tyrannical uncle’s arbitrary edict, draws crucial distinctions between moral decency and contingent legislation, and buries her brother anyway. Aristophanes, in his democratic comedies, subjected politicians who wielded power to satire of eye-watering savagery. Socrates dedicated his life to proving the difference between the truth and received opinion, the unexamined life being, in his view, not worth living. No wonder Hobbes thought that reading Greek and Roman authors should be banned by any self-respecting tyrant, in Leviathan arguing that they foment revolution under the slogan of liberty, instilling in people a habit “of favouring uproars, lawlessly controlling the actions of their sovereigns, and then controlling those controllers”.
We spent most of yesterday over in New Haven to have lunch with old friends and to catch a remarkable one-woman performance of the autobiographical "As I Remember It" at the Yale Rep by the unique modern dancer/actress/choreographer Carmen de Lavallade.
At 84, she is vividly theatrical, charismatic, humorous and sassy. She can still do more than just indicate dance movements. She can move. Her lifelong husband Geoffrey Holder died last year, but she is still truckin. Lives in Manhattan.
Mrs. BD was thrilled to meet and chat with this iconic dancer at a special reception afterwards, because she has mentioned her to me admiringly many times over the years. In person, de Lavallade is elegant, modest and charming, in great shape, and loves hors d'oevres. No surprise to me that she was hungry for treats and wine after holding the stage alone for 1 1/2 hours.
We had an hour or more to stroll around downtown New Haven and old Eli, which all looks better than it has in my lifetime. My pal, like my Dad, went to grad school there and never left the university. New Haven is a clearly Town and Gown city. The gown part is a strong and large faculty social club (which includes some local professionals outside the Yale community), as it has been for hundreds of years. Much of New Haven is blue collar or urban poor and there are parts you might not want to go to.
Somehow, the tired old city still has a handful of exclusive old jolly Waspy clubs for bow-tie wearing men. How did those survive? They do not run the city anymore - retreated into their private lives and gave it to the townies to screw it up with property taxes and oppression of job-creators.
Yes, Greeks do eat a lot of "Village Salad." It does call for Greek olive oil (often considered lousy oil except by the Greeks), which is somehow different from Italian even though the olives are the same.
Greeks, like the north africans, don't really do "extra virgin" or any of that fancy stuff.
Americans 
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Poll: 
Poached salmon with yoghurt dill sauce is one of our standards for bringing as our contribution to outdoor summer dinner parties. Asparagus is good on the side. Everybody loves it.
Unpaid Internships Are Worth it: 
How To Grow Kohlrabi
My college sex education: In her first year, a student finds a campus obsessed with hooking up —
Simple and good,