Maggie's Farm

Vermont was settled later than most of New England, in the late 1700s by people from Connecticut,  Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Pioneers, attracted by cheap land. You could cut down all the trees and raise sheep, and the rivers provided endless power for mills. Woolen mills, stone-cutting marble and granite mills, lumber mills, etc. You could transport stuff down the rivers to the big Connecticut River.

They did cut down all the trees: by 1850 most of Vermont was denuded of forest, whether for lumber, grazing, charcoal, or firewood. 

(In the 1700s, Vermont was considered part of the New York colony, but New Hampshire had claims on it. For a few decades, Vermont was the independent Republic of Vermont until they joined the union in 1792.)

After producing the woolen garments for World War 1, Vermont's mills slowly closed down, the Vermont wool biz (Big Wool moved west) dried up and was replaced by dairy for the distant cities when the trains came through. Now, with factory dairy, there isn't even much of that any more, and the trees have grown back (and so have the Moose, Black Bear, and White-Tailed Deer). The milk cows today spend all day in sheds until their productivity drops and they are turned into Mcdonalds burgers.

The wealth evident in the fine houses built in Woodstock from roughly 1800-1840 (replacing shacks, log cabins, and other humble dwellings) was a combination of its being a Shire town - a county seat with court and jail and lawyers - and the woolen mills. Those businesses attracted tradesmen and farmers, roads spread out, and the town thrived for a while. In 1830, this town of 3000 souls (then, and 3000 now!) had five newspapers.

Today, Woodstock is all about tourism, with endless interesting summer and winter events, and skiing, of course, in the winter. The village is preserved in amber by a fierce architectural review board and its designation as a National Historic District. Laurence Rockefeller had a lot to do with that (his Woodstock home is among the photos below the fold).

And, today, Vermont has the distinction of having the lowest per capita income in the US, having surpassed Mississippi a few years ago. The poorer they get, the further to the Left they move. It is not rational and it is utterly self-created (taxes and regs) and self-defeating, but it's a free country and, here at Maggie's Farm, we value the freedom of people to do stupid things if they want to. (I just hate it when people make obviously predictable mistakes on my nickel.)

The Wiki on Woodstock, VT here. Worth a visit. Bring camera.

I took the photos below early on Saturday morning. The temp was 48 degrees F at 5:30 when I typically go out to begin my exploring of a place (hence no people around in some of my photos). By mid-day, the temp got up to a balmy global warming crisis of 73 degrees.

I offer no architectural comments on the details of these structures. I don't have the time, and I lack the eye for detail that Mrs. BD has. My brain tends towards weight, balance, harmony, and emotional comfort - and only notices detail when it intrudes. However, I do know and believe that God is in the details. More on that later (maybe).

From this week's Christnotes:

It would be nice to simply wake up one day and suddenly be a mature Christian, but in order to grow up in God, we will have to go through trials. There is no other way to grow strong spiritually than to go through trials.

1 Peter 5:10 says, And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. You may not like trials, but this verse says that when you are going through trials after you have suffered a little while, you will grow to be firmly rooted and grounded (strong, firm and steadfast) in God.

Similarly, James 1:12 says, Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Here again, you don't get the rewards (the crown of life) until you have persevered under trial and stood the test.

So, learn to be thankful in your trials, because in order to get your breakthrough, you need a trial to break through.

Therefore, don't be discouraged during times of suffering. Know that after you have suffered a little while, God himself will make you strong, firm, and steadfast.

The Dylanologist and I used to joke about the notion of a Bob Dylan Christmas album.

But what's up with this?

Related, Dylan reciting The Night Before Christmas on his Theme Time Radio Show.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

H.L.Mencken (h/t, Am Digest)

Remember when protest was patriotic? Glenn Reynolds

Habla astroturf? Via Doug Ross:

I asked him if he could tell me what the signs said. “¿Quien sabe?” (who knows?) was all he said to me, with a big grin. I’m kicking myself for not asking them how much they were getting paid to support the grassroots...

Do economic stats depend on the eye of the beholder? Powerline

I guess a deal was made. Big Pharma to run ads supporting Dem health plans. The politics of medical care is shaping up in strange ways. However, even the folks in Mass. heap scorn on it.

Dr. Krauthammer has a better plan. Simpler, too.

House doubles size of their private jet buy. Audacity indeed.

The CBO gives a big Thumbs Down to the silly notion of Preventive Care. Duh. Everybody gets sick, and eventually dies. It costs the same whether you die at 50 or 89.

Where the heck is Marianne Matthews?

I hope she's OK. We miss this Texan's wise and temperate comments at Maggie's.

It's tough to visit Woodstock, VT without focusing on the Federal and neo-Colonial architecture. I will post much of that on later posts, when I can get my act together.  

Photo below was the view from the Simon Pearce Restaurant in Quechee (yes, most of the group went downstairs to watch the glass-blowing) on Friday night's dinner). This sight felt like symbolism for the wedding:

 More random photos below the fold -

Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks — drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high.

Mark Steyn, linked here.

I cranked up my trusty Stihl Farm Boss last weekend to do some jobs, and my neighbor who has some heart problems brought me a cold Rolling Rock and asked me to cut down an old Pear tree which was productive 20 years ago but which has been in serious decline since it has been in the shade of several big trees.

For a cold one, a year's supply of good fruit wood for meat-smoking, and for the pleasure of helping out a neighbor, I was happy to do it. My stock of wild cherry chunks from last year is running low.

As long-time readers know, I always have mishaps with chain saws. Someday the thing will kill me. So be it. The two nuts of the cover blew off somehow and the chain blew off right after we got the big old tree down. Could only find one of the nuts. So it was a case of "pass me another cold one, let's light up some Cubans, and I will finish this job later."

Don't you hate to leave a job half-done?

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

4:25 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.

4:26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,

4:27 and do not make room for the devil.

4:28 Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.

4:29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

4:31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,

4:32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,

5:2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Well, it's not all bla bla bla.

As in this case: Most women are not, in my view, angry bitch psychotic academic victimized mini-monsters. The Retriever's Grandma, for instance (image on right from that post).

Here at Maggie's (Maggie is herself a tough old broad with a sense of humor and doesn't mind getting her hands dirty), we hold strong, cheerful, independent, humorous, tender, gutsy, intelligent, loving women in the highest regard.

More re women: our hero Charles puts Palin in perspective. I think he is right. Nothing to do with her charisma or gender. We like her very much, and hate the contempt she receives for having a non-elite life style.

Disney accused of defending heteronormativity. Not a joke. It does sound perverted, doesn't it? Not by accident.

American women have it worse than any women in the world. Just ask any wife: she'll tell ya all about it if you can get her off the computer for a minute. Always shopping for the latest new colors in burkhas to get stoned in, you know?

How do our neopuritanical Sociologist types discuss such things? Bruce found this, about social stratification on the internet. I learned a new word: homophily. It also sounds like a perversion, but it means that people often tend to hang out with people they feel comfortable with.

Well, golly gee! Smack me with a mackeral and call me Edna! Thank God for the science of sociology to inform us of that. Maybe I am an exception, but I very much enjoy people who are different too, if they bring something to the table. Still, family is family, a paisan is a paisan, and a tribe is a tribe.

Thou and I

Joyful the moment when we sat in the bower, Thou and I;
In two forms and with two faces - with one soul, Thou and I.

The colour of the garden and the song of the birds give the elixir of immortality
The instant we come into the orchard, Thou and I.

The stars of Heaven come out to look upon us -
We shall show the moon herself to them, Thou and I.

Thou and I, with no 'Thou' or 'I', shall become one through our tasting;
Happy, safe from idle talking, Thou and I.

The spirited parrots of heaven will envy us -
When we shall laugh in such a way, Thou and I.

This is stranger, that Thou and I, in this corner here...
Are both in one breath here and there - Thou and I.

Rumi was a poet, scholar and mystic, and the inspiration for the Whirling Dervishes (which we saw in Turkey a few years ago).

"I am a taxpayer by trade." Vanderleun. Also,

I have no doubt that as the post-racial, no-reparations-here, President of all Americans, in a full spirit of bipartisanship and concern for the little guy in the Taxpaying Industries of America, you will agree in this one instance to allow me to pay all my taxes next year with a check post-dated to 2013.

Useful for the front or back porch, or the deck of your Boston Whaler. You can buy these functioning repros here.

India's population is 1.150 billion. It is predicted to surpass China's by 2030.

India has 600 billion farm animals.

Dick Morris wants this short ad to get around -

This is 1974. It sounds like a studio rehearsal tape. No video.

We all  know well that a collection of lies, deceptions, half-truths, fear, and cynical manipulation are what passes for a soul in many politicians.

Still, the bald-faced lying about the Dem health scheme has reached new lows.

1. Pelosi claims protesters are carrying swastikas. They are? What a jackass.

2. Did you notice that, just like with Global Warming, it's not Health Care Reform this week. Now it's Health Insurance Reform. Less scary, I guess, but the same bill.

3. The Director of the DNC included this assertion in his email about dealing with the "mobs":

These “grassroots protests” are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They’re trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.

That is 100% baloney.

4. Senator accuses WH of assembling an enemies list.

5. The coming middle-class tax hikes for medical coverage. Henninger:

Every policy wonk in America may have known this was always an everybody-into-the-pool proposal, and Mr. Obama has talked himself blue saying people could stay with the insurance they’ve got or the doctor they’ve got, “if you’re happy with that” and don’t like the public option.

A lot of people simply don’t believe this. How come? White House adviser David Axelrod said this week, “Our job is to help folks understand how this will help them.” It could be they’ve already thought about that. For many people, the first six Obama months already have been an unsettling Dantesque tour through levels of government “help” they never knew existed.

Rove comments re those taxes:

The House version of Mr. Obama’s health-care—excuse me, “health-insurance”—reform already has four taxes that will largely be paid by people making less than $250,000 a year. There’s $8.2 billion in taxes for using health savings accounts and other tax-free medical savings vehicles to purchase over-the-counter drugs. There’s an 8% tax on employers who don’t offer insurance: The Congressional Budget Office says workers in those businesses would pay the $163 billion cost via lost wages.

There’s a 2.5% “Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable Health Care Coverage” in the House bill that applies to people who either don’t have insurance or whose policies the government deems inadequate. Finally, there’s a $2 billion “Comparative Effectiveness Research Tax” on all private and “public option” insurance policies.

If some version of ObamaCare is passed, the president will break his tax pledge several more times while adding trillions to the deficit, dismantling the best elements of our health-care system and slashing Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.

The level of hysteria, it is clear to me, comes from the rare opportunity for the Left to nationalize - and thus to politicize - a giant sector of the economy, and one which is closest to peoples' hearts. If they blow it again, the chance may not return for another 20 years. And yet they have already blown it, because their bill is an atrocity.

Via Protein:

If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop with the dissent and let us run your life.

Stanford University update, at Driscoll. This is all on their parents' hard-earned nickel, of course, but I suppose children must be children until reality makes them grow up.

Mandatory military service, as in Israel, might help, though.

The smaller ones are best for indoors, but the larger helos are good outdoors, as long as it isn't too breezy.

Rechargable lipo batteries, with recharger.

Link here. 

Their problem, from Dem Blame Game Keeps Backfiring:

No one expects the Democrats to have a crystal ball, but they do expect them to have some basic answers.  With something as big as changing a system that makes up 18 percent of our economy, it's hard to be precise-- because no one really knows exactly how it will unfold.

The most concrete answers, unfortunately for the Democrats, have come from the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO warns that the House bill will cost over $1 trillion dollars for the first ten years, that it will only cover a fraction of the uninsured, and that taxes are likely to be raised across the board.

Those bombshells sounded an alarm across the country.  Instead of being comforted, Americans became uneasy.  They started showing up in droves at town hall meetings, calling their Congressman, paying more attention to the debate, and raising more questions.

Instead of trying to answer the questions on the merits, many Democrats lashed out at anyone who dared suggest the proposal wasn't ready for prime time.  They started blaming others for their predicament.

The wealthier the country, the more people value their health. Call it narcissistic, or call it smart - it's what most people want - more life, and more functional life. Hence knee replacements and coronary artery stents for all. What's wrong with that? As everybody says, "All you have is your health."

Nobody wants their health - or their disease - in the hands of politicians.

This classic Abbot and Costello routine (finally, somebody put it on youTube) reminds me of how the Left reacts if you say the word "Palin." Or "Bush," for that matter.