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.
Last month, feminists in Cologne responded to the mass molestation by predominantly Muslim migrants that occurred on New Year’s Eve by visiting the city’s largest refugee center and handing out roses as a “gesture against xenophobia”. Another feminist group in Cologne responded to the attacks by denouncing “German born men”.
Scientists should have known in 1980 that the recommendation to cut fat was unsound. Large clinical trials at the time did not support the theory, according to a systematic review published last year in the cardiology journal Open Heart. "It seem incomprehensible that dietary advice was introduced for 220 million Americans," the authors wrote, "given the contrary results."
The European elite’s reckless disregard for the very real limits on the Continent’s political and psychological ability to receive migrants, and the shortsightedness of arrogant policymakers who charged on without an understanding of public sentiment, is going to cost Europe—and migrants—dear.
The U.S. is also heading for this kind of reckoning: Immigration and refugee policy have become detached from public sentiment and the backlash is gathering force. In both the U.S. and the EU, there is a rising sentiment in public opinion that elites are deliberately and consciously taking steps that will change the demographic and cultural balance of the countries they oversee. This is the kind of soil in which poisonous plants grow well, and one can watch them growing on both sides of the Atlantic.
The European Union, which generates constant peace-and-love propaganda, is a complete and utter fraud. Nobody in the Eurocracy is actually elected by voters. European voters are completely helpless, and national parliaments are constantly yielding power to the appointed bureaucracy in Brussels. All EU propaganda consists of barefaced lies. This is a mass psychiatric problem -- self-delusion being the biggest sign of neurosis.
Rarely seen Stockman so relatively jocular, especially given this gloomy message about markets and the world economy. He likes cash and gold right now.
Race and immigration are two things, like sex and money used to be, that people are not allowed to talk about. Well, they can all go to hell. The EU is a dictatorship by unelected bureaucrats who wish to control our lives. Our elected representatives know this, yet are doing everything they can to perpetuate it. That’s what they should have been discussing in Davos.
Some varieties bloom in the snow, long before spring bulbs.
Here's how to take care of your Hellebores. Seems like a good idea to plant them in bunches. (In our view here at the farm, there are only two types of planting plans - massed - all of one species - and specimen plants. Random mixes are just a mess, we believe, most of the time. I violate the rule often)
I am going to get me some and see how they do.
(I wonder about the impact of online plant sellers on local nurseries and the old standard plant mail-order catalogues. Must be like the impact of Amazon on booksellers. Nurseries cannot compete with the online selections. Just look at Hosta Patch - 500 varieties of Hostas.)
I recently read somebody questioning how the "Greatest Generation" - meaning the WW 2 warriors, makers, and builders - could be so great if they spawned the ridiculous Boomers.
Balsamic Dreams:A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation by Joe Queenan.
How does it happen that so many people from one generation can end up with so much foolishness and self-absorption in common? Queenan is tough on his peers and on himself, mocking everything from the obsession with staying young and "eating healthy" to the fad for "tag team" funerals with the clergy as an accessory.
You will never touch "organic balsamic," a "heritage tomato" or a free range turkey again without a sense of your own absurdity.
Boomers will see themselves almost too clearly in this book. Laugh or cry? Your choice, but the book's mirror could cause a boomer to want to off himself due to self-disgust. The good part is that it offers one good laugh per page, the bad part is that it offers a horror of self-recognition on every page too.
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
13:2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
13:3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
13:6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
13:7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
13:8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
13:9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
13:10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Paul is not talking about romance (despite all of the stupid weddings that use this) - or about any ordinary things. Not a human relationship manual. He is preaching theologically about how Christ's light can shine through us if we let it, and lead us to worship God and Christ and be changed by that from a gong to something else, something more Christ-like and less human.
Statistically, single motherhood is as dumb as dropping out of high school. There is no cure for stupid and, shockingly, outside Lake Wobegon a full half of Americans have below-average IQs.
That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
(Neoneo was reminded of this poem, here.)The first verse feels stolen from Hopkins, doesn't it?
Aka Shepherd's Pie. Big family party tomorrow. I am making the innards tonight because these stew-like things are always better the next day. This recipe, basically, with ground lamb and doubling the recipe. I am adding frozen corn (maize to your furriners) and some wine, gibier sauce, and raspberry jelly to it, to enrich it. I'll simmer it 20 minutes longer to reduce the sauce and mingle the flavors before throwing in the peas and corn.
Winter peasant food. Moussaka is great too, same idea. A friend served us antelope moussaka a while ago. Delicious.
It’s almost funny seeing Europeans trying politely to teach their conquerors how not to treat those whom they have conquered. I wonder how long it will take before the Europeans figure out that they’re no longer in the driver’s seat. And then I wonder whether they’ll be able or willing to mount a counter-strike, or whether the twelve-hundred year-long Islamic jihad against Europe will finally have succeeded.
It's a cooking textbook and a cookbook. Unlike a recipe book, it teaches the fundamentals and the theory along with the recipe. It's the one text almost every professional and serious hobbyist has on the shelf or, more likely, in the kitchen covered with stains. A reference book.
If I had the time, I would take some serious cooking classes because I love to do justice to the earth's bounty. I know Mrs. BD and I would enjoy one of those 5-day courses in Amalfi or Florence. Or better yet, in some village in France. French country food is the best.
In our posts on calisthenic fitness exercises (ie cardio + body-weight exertion - not muscle-building) we have always included jump-roping. I have been working on it. There is a technique to be mastered, and the ballistic nature of it is quickly fatiguing for me. I have tried to do doubles, but can not do them yet.
Block out any association you have with jump ropes and school children—the jump rope is an incredibly efficient, versatile workout tool. Carry it in your backpack or briefcase, bring it with you on vacations and weekend trips for work because this is one of the easiest ways to build cardio fitness, agility, and strength on the go.
This fellow goes through 6 tips for your beginning jump-roping (the 6 videos should run sequentially but if they do not, here they are:
Bob Elliott
Toon via 
Sailing to Byzantium (1933)
Aka Shepherd's Pie. Big family party tomorrow. I am making the innards tonight because these stew-like things are always better the next day. This 
The 
Image via 
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