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.
I find Deadlifts and Squats to be the most strenuous exercises. It makes sense, because these two are strength-builders - not calisthenics - and engage so many muscle groups at once. (In the Calisthenics category, I find Burpees the most strenuous.)
Squats are a fundamental, functional, whole-body exercise. As it is wrong to say that Deads can hurt your back, it is wrong to claim that squats can harm your knees. The contrary is true for both.
I focus on the squat today as I have begun to introduce weighted squats into my basic strength-building routine. I need them. Barbell on my shoulders works best for me, but to each his own. Kettlebell held on chest is good for a start.
When people who have been loyal to conservative causes and conservative politicians their whole life find themselves being called racists and bigots by those people they supported, they start to feel like they have been conned. When ruling class organs publicly argue that vast parts of the culture must be destroyed, that traditional America must be wiped out, people hear a declaration of war. The response is not going to be “yes sir, may I have another.” The response, to quote the late Andrew Breitbart, is going to be “Fuck you. War!”
The Incredible Cluelessness of Donald Trump - Trump has demonstrated over and over again
that he doesn't know the slightest thing about policy. The GOP is
supporting him anyway.
Our previous Maggie's group hike began at South Ferry and meandered around the far downtown with all the historic sights like the WTC, South St. Seaport, and Grace Church, and wended our way up through Little Italy (with stop for lunch), Union Square, East Village, McSorleys, etc, then up 5th with detours to Madison Square, Gramercy Park, then past the Empire State, the Library, and concluded at Grand Central Terminal where we all had a drink at the Campbell Apartment (no jeans or t-shirts allowed).
I'd say everybody had a good time and sore legs.
This time - Saturday, April 23, we'll begin in the Lower East Side and wend our way thru that area seeing a few sights before heading uptown staying mostly east of 5th (due to tourists and general street crowds) then cutting west for the good food trucks around Grand Army Plaza for snacks. Then the hike through the entire length of Central Park which few of us have done, then over to St. John the Divine to conclude on the campus of Columbia University at 114th and B'way.
I there is time, we should stroll over to Riverside Church and Grant's tomb.
Creatives, we are multi-dimensional creatures. Let’s not let our abilities be defined, limited and constrained. Let them flourish like the enlightening work we do… The work we do is important and it is empowering, particularly when it is bringing awareness to social justice issues. Much of creative work does exactly this while other sectors of society refuse to acknowledge the social ills we endure and even erases them.
They make excellent shoes and they have many widths which matters to me with my narrow feets. They are sold in NYC and a few other places. They also make the Brooks Brothers-branded shoes, but not the Brooks English shoes.
Good affordable lifetime shoes for formal, dress-casual, and other. Impossible to wear 'em out, because they will refurbish them for you at their factory regardless of their condition. Fine old shoes with some sign of age and use are cool, trustworthy. Wear your good shoes all the time and you will never go wrong.
I do not wish to be judged by my tires, but I am told that people sort-of do, sometimes. Sheesh. Well, it might be preferable to judging me by the content of my character...
A friend recently told me that he dragged a junior associate to the Alden place in NYC before an important business meeting. Threw the associate's shoes in the trash, and bought him an appropriate new pair. Job training. First impressions matter, rightly or wrongly. If you're a genius, maybe not - but even Einstein deliberately cultivated his wacky flair to attract girls.
When over 30% of working age men aren’t participating in the labor force, trouble is brewing. It’s even worse when you consider the 25 to 54 year old male participation rate has declined from 97% in the 1950’s and 1960’s to below 88% today. Much of the anger building in this country is the result of men in their prime earning years seeing their jobs shipped overseas, outsourced, or taken by HB1 workers. The backlash against illegal immigrants is understandable.
The nominative form of pronouns is used following a linking verb. Thus "It is I" and "This is he." Linking verbs are verbs about being rather than action, eg is/am. This can sometimes sound stilted, but it's English. It's good to have high standards even if one can not live up to them.
Somewhat related is You and I versus you and me. It's easy to sort that one out without making any reference to grammatical terms. Just mentally simplify the sentence to one person and it clarifies itself. Eg, "You and me should have lunch." "Me should have lunch"? Naw. So it's "You and I..."
The politicization of the humanities was well under way when I was an English major in the early 1990s, and my education suffered as a result. This wasn't because I was so oppressed as a conservative, but because in roughly half my classes, there was no easier route to an A than to argue that some long-dead author was a sexist pig, racist cretin or homophobic jerk. Being, like so many college students, not overfond of unnecessary labor, I’m afraid I all too frequently slithered along the easy path to the 4.0.
We went down there with some friends and family to see a young playwrights presentation recently. A real slice of New York. NY is to drama what LA is to movies. NY has Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway, Off-Off-Off Broadway - a hundred indie theater companies. It's a world unto itself. In NY, people go to the theater. It's a theater town. This indie black box theater we went to on Suffolk St. was sold out with 150, and after the performances there was a party with dancing etc. but we old folks did not stay for all of that. Too late for us.
We walked about Suffolk, Riverton, etc. There were hordes of highly-attractive, polite young people all over. Perfectly safe, lively, but with plenty of the good old grittiness and funkiness which indicates that it has not been gentrified. (Unlike Chelsea and now even Hell's Kitchen which are being so improved that I call them "Disney NY". Too quaint.) Lower East Side is a place for youth. People talk to strangers on the streets, pleasantly. "Where ya going?" No cops needed, no cops around. Tons of pubs, cafes, music clubs, and little restaurants of all sorts. Like Greenwich Village c. 1960 - or like the old medieval city centers in Europe.
Ambitious and well-educated young people from all over the US flock to NYC to test their mettle, and to mate. I did that, too, but it's much better and more fun now. The challenge is affordable places to live. Always roommates, always cramped. But you do not stay indoors - you go out and just use your place as a dormitory. Work 14-hour days, work two jobs, go to clubs and pubs and hang out and meet pretty people with all sorts of interests and ambitions. Network. It works.
I envy those youth in NYC today, living in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side (being priced out of the West Village, Chelsea, and Hell's Kitchen now).
The Lower East Side of Manhattan has a colorful history, from the old farms and orchards on Orchard street, to the starting point of immigrants from the 1860s through the turn of the century, to the large Jewish dominated immigrant population, to crime and drugs when those immigrants moved uptown or to suburbia in the 50s and 60s, to its present "transitional" wonderfulness.
Hey, Jacob Riis: Those terrible tenements were welcome, neighborly housing for immigrants coming from nothing at all. There was lots of cultural support without government intervention. Riis was a self-made entrepreneurial Danish immigrant, but failed to understand that the tenements - with a chance for economic improvement and freedom - were a Godsend to the Germans, Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Puerto Ricans, etc, where they started their lives in America. Riis had no faith in the immigrants' moxie.
Truth be told, my daughters, when starting out, lived in quarters similar to those in the Tenement Museum. Many people still do, without complaint - except they have toilets in their apartments.
You can get a good history of the Lower East Side on wiki.
Small streets and small venues make for a neighborly atmosphere. For such a colorful, lively, multi-ethnic, youth-dominated friendly neighborhood, it remains fairly inexpensive thus far - by NY standards. Here's a random one on Riverton.
Around 20 years ago a colleague bought a brownstone and a five-story walk-up building down there, back when it was not nice and you could see guys with needles in their arms in the gutters - and when they were giving buildings away. He moved there. At this point, his retirement (which I very much doubt that he will ever desire) would be assured in great comfort should he ever sell one of them now.
My only problem with that neighborhood is that I do not understand the trains. I do not know these trains. F Train? What? Have to use Uber to get around some of these places in NYC. Why Uber? Because cabs mainly hang around midtown, where there is most of the business.
Note to Bulldog: Our next urban hike has to go through there, and then up through the East Village (technically still Lower East Side. Blame the realtors.)
20:19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
20:20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
20:21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
20:22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
20:24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
20:25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
20:26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
20:27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."
20:28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"
20:29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
20:30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
20:31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Madama Butterfly live from the Met got me through a day of heavy lifting and clean-up - after my redundant morning work-out. Shlepping my in-law's stuff as they move to an independent living home, and making space for stuff we or our kids can use. Good new beds and never-used mattresses, etc.
This is one reason I donate to WQXR - to keep the good stuff coming. It's the tunes. I have an FM antenna high on the top of the roof, but they do online too. Computer speakers are terrible.
We visited his house in the olde walled town of Lucca, and the church where he learned music. Pilgrimage to a pop star.
Off topic - my best peach tree bloomed today, and we have snow and windstorms tonight. Damn that pesky Climate Change. Meanwhile, ye olde HQ is filled with the pungent smell of garlic, onion, oil, oregano, and capers. Bottle the smell of that sauce for sole. Or soul.
I have posted in the past about the food of Sicily. Basically, it is entirely different from that of southern Italy. For one thing, they use more couscous and rice than pasta. For another, the menu is heavy on seafood and grilled meat. Lots of eggplant.
Muslim invaders ruled Sicily for long enough to shape their culture. Ruled it wisely and softly, too. Can't say the same for the subsequent Viking rulers who fortunately had little impact on Sicilian cuisine.
Arancini is their street food (a fried thing made of rice with tasties in the middle). The local blood oranges are a typical dessert.
There is little authentico Sicilian food in the US. Pizza is not Sicilian, and neither is tomato sauce. I know of one decent Sicilian restaurant in NYC: eolo
"Only William Goetzmann--an archaeologist, art historian, and esteemed finance scholar--could have produced this masterful exploration of money and investing through the ages. Money Changes Everything is at once deep, broad, sweeping, and gorgeously illustrated. It is a book that readers will savor and refer to again and again."
He is focusing on carb metabolism and other health-related issues. Those issues aside, I think general conditioning, or training as he terms it, calls for both strength and cardio-endurance efforts. Of course intensity is key, which is why walking has no fitness benefit for those under age 80. If he has arguments against burpees, heavy rope games, stepping routines, and jump rope, I'd listen to them because those calisthenics are strenuous, difficult, and basically unpleasant.
My simple theory is that if physical efforts are stressful and difficult to the point of pain and failure, they will make you better (as long as you are not truly injuring yourself). It has to be hard as heck.
Funeral today of a friend of 30 years, the mother of dear friends. She raised 6 kids in the tough, thrifty, Yankee way with a rigid moral code, perfect gracious manners, and perfect stickler for grammar ("It is I"). A woman of faith, calm, decorum, and selflessness - and who stayed fit and kept skiing into her mid-80s.
We sang this one at the closing, one which always brings tears for me.
Marquette is allegedly a Catholic institution. The last time I checked, the Church still rejects the fruitless arrangement of gay marriage. Yet, here they are allowing Social Justice Warriors to fire a professor for upholding the Catholic position on marriage. What sort of church allows enemies of its existence take over its institutions like this? Why would anyone want to be a part of such a spineless, gutless hypocritical enterprise?
You can truly be Lord of the Manor with this pre-Medieval/Medieval estate in beautiful Umbria, not far outside the cute hilltop village of Todi. Owned by the same family for over a thousand years. It is for sale. (h/t reader)
Plenty of space for servants and house guests. Has its own olive grove. Defensive walls fully intact and ready for Islamist invasion. In fact, this place probably fended off Muslim attackers and invaders 1000 years ago. Saracens, they called them then. They came to rape, plunder, take slaves, and to colonize when possible. Every Islamist invasion in Europe ultimately failed, until today.
No information is offered re condition of plumbing, wiring, and defensive weaponry. You can have Sippican check it all out for you. He would be happy to.
People got tired of, or by, my work-out posts, so I gave it a rest until tonight.
For cardio conditioning, it's the intensity - not the time spent.
"Runnin' man is a great conditioning tool to integrate rhythm, timing, and footwork into your routine. As a double bonus there is a big decrease in impact compared to traditional jogging." Properly done, jump rope games are almost zero joint impact other than toes. Lately, I see more and more people incorporating it into their cardio routines. Often, three one-minute sets of rope mixed with some other stuff.
If you can do Running Man for longer than a minute without getting winded, let us know.
How does Running Man work? Clearly there is a moment in this fast jogging in which neither foot is on the ground - but one is not aware of that when doing it. Seems like magic. By the way, this guy is stepping a bit too high and his arms are too wide for correct technique, but he has good speed:
Pic of Connecticut resident Keith Richards, 
Our previous Maggie's group hike began at South Ferry and meandered around the far downtown with all the historic sights like the WTC, South St. Seaport, and Grace Church, and wended our way up through Little Italy (with stop for lunch), Union Square, East Village, McSorleys, etc, then up 5th with detours to Madison Square, Gramercy Park, then past the Empire State, the Library, and concluded at Grand Central Terminal where we all had a drink at the Campbell Apartment (no jeans or t-shirts allowed).
My Kids Don’t Eat Organic. 
Madama Butterfly live from the Met got me through a day of heavy lifting and clean-up - after my redundant morning work-out. Shlepping my in-law's stuff as they move to an independent living home, and making space for stuff we or our kids can use. Good new beds and never-used mattresses, etc.
