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.
Among the islanders, signing was considered a life skill, like knowing how to fish, more than a formal language to be taught. “It was passed on to kids as part of, ‘Here’s the stuff you need to know to make a living in this corner of the world,’” Van Riper said. Children picked it up from their parents; no records indicate that it was ever taught in schools.
Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a message, she has ambition. Her obsession with becoming president has overshadowed any reason that anyone might have to vote for her. She offers no hope and less change. Her candidacy is historic… but only for her. There is no promise she can make that anyone will believe.
After having spent much of her life trying to become president, she will leave once again a failure.
I am seeing that the NJ and Bulldog are getting on board. Good American fitness and strength in mind, morals, body, and spirit is what we're about (we hope). Mens sana in corpore sano.
Can I confess how freaking hard it is becoming? My trainer keeps ramping up his demands as I enter my 6th month of intense, six-day/wk fitness training program. It's up there with the hardest work I have ever encountered, mentally and physically. Boot Camp. It is hard, and it hurts. It stretches one's capacity for discipline and effort, same or more than studying Physical Chemistry.
In the process, I discover things about myself. For one thing, I learn that when I think I am beat, I can still do a little more if I get my head around it to fully engage my will. In some ways, I am weaker in willthan I like to think. Will, self-control, and self-discipline are the keys to so many achievements and accomplishments in life.It is part of what is termed "executive functioning."Overall life effectiveness in pursuing goals.
Another thing I have found interesting is that, just as in a job, or in therapy, or in a church group, AA, a military platoon, or on a sports team, it is relationship which brings out the most we can do and pushes us forward. On my own, I could never have accomplished what I have done thus far had I read read instructions in a book. I am amazed by how this middle-aged bod can adapt to physical demands despite the inevitable aches and pains and injuries of intense exercises. This body is harder than it has ever been, no soft spots and no fat except for some (genetic?) but shrinking love handles.
Crossfit (which I think is good but I don't do) gets that with their group fitness programs. The team cheers each other on, from the old or fat or heart-impaired to the young and strong. It's not so much competitive as it is relational (not that there is anything wrong with the competitive part because that is fun too). They do compete in weight loss, if they need that.
It's a love-hate adventure for me. There is an end point where it will be more about "maintain" instead of "progress." Not there yet, especially in the full-body endurance department. A few more months, I suspect. Can't do enough reps benching my weight either. I am more interested, though, in intense endurance than in plain muscle and my natural build is ectomorph with a meso tendency. Average. I want to do 30 minutes on the stair machine set on a fair speed, for example, or 50 medicine ball smashes without collapsing. My planks are getting longer though, to the point that my whole body quivers and shivers for 80 seconds. That's when my guy says "25 more seconds - c'mon, lock those elbows." So I do it and then fall on the floor.
In the end, it is for life functionality and fun, not for the gym. A little vanity is the dessert. Yes, my abs are shaping up but it's just for sex appeal...
George Washington is said to have loved a chilled Paw Paw. No doubt, he had summer ice imported from the New England ice houses for his Mint Julips. Paw Paws grow wild in the Eastern US, but I don't think I have ever seen one growing.
Remember this?
Where, oh where is dear little Nellie? Where, oh where is dear little Nellie? Where, oh where is dear little Nellie? Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch
Pickin' up pawpaws, puttin' 'em in your pocket Pickin' up pawpaws, puttin' 'em in your pocket Pickin' up pawpaws, puttin' 'em in your pocket Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch.
This custardy native North American fruit cannot be commercialized because it deteriorates so quickly after picking.
My pals and I get a kick out of growing unlikely things in the chilly Northeast like fig, paw paw, and peach. It takes a green thumb. (Brown Turkey Fig can survive New England winters if properly protected. Just one plant can produce hundreds of fresh figs. The above-ground branches sometimes die back in winter here, but it comes back with a vengeance from the root in Spring.)
Tip: Since we are approaching ideal fruit tree planting season, that Mutsu Apple is delicious, bears heavily, has large fruit. My neighbor has kept us well-supplied with his over-abundant crop this fall.
Some people just can't or won't make it on their own. Some people are not functional and lack family supports. Even England had poor-houses, as did colonial US.
The Wisteria which shades our pergola and makes such a fine display in May sent runners around the porch and attacked our porch furniture like a Strangler Fig. Mind you, we cut the heck out of the thing back in early July but for 2 months it has been on an imperialist rampage.
Where can I buy some Agent Orange? Fighting this thing becomes tiresome. It wants to take over the world.
America is destroying its values on an industrial scale. In a post-industrial nation, the destruction of values has become one of its chief industries. And while there is value in challenging values, in the conflict and clash of ideas, that requires that values go on existing, or there is no longer anything to challenge. And then there is nothing left but emptiness and madness.
The problem with growing fruit is that it all ripens at once. The reward is the emotional satisfaction of walking outside and harvesting with friends and family.
Canning etc is a foolish, uneconomic, messy, mindless, homey chore. We all do some of that anyway because it feels good and is a link to the past.
Peach trees to plant this fall (most trees prefer fall planting): Stark Bros.
I have to remember to prune the heck out of my peaches this late winter. My Seckel Pears are still too youthful to bear fruit. My fig shrub died last winter due to global cooling but they often can survive northern winters if wrapped in sheets of polyurethane or garbage bags.
One cool aspect of this production of the bawdy love, sex, and fantasy farce is that 5 actors play all of the roles - with no costumes. Thus the dreamlike confusion is created. No props, no set, so your imagination fills in the details like a dream.
The sober-minded (but rarely sober) Samuel Pepys saw the play in the early 1600s and thought it ridiculous. It is, sort-of, but it has had a long shelf life thus far for some reason.
The play within a play within a dream is so intentionally dumb that it's funny. Sheesh, the guy's plays were meant to be plain entertainment and not to be taken seriously. He just wanted to get rich by appealing to all levels of society and education from the Queen to the stable groom and he had a good enough grammar school education to do that. Once he got rich and maybe had his fill of girlfriends, he quit.
We had the usual fine post-matinee supper at what has become our favorite place in that neighborhood, The West Bank Cafe. The kids told us how much they enjoyed having seen - and met the author - of the clever musical Hamilton on Broadway. Since they are discerning and discriminating theater-goers, I'll listen to them. (That daughter is an ambitious playwright and script-writer. Actress too.)
I informed them that Hamilton's farmhouse still stands in far-uptown Manhattan. He used to ride his horse up the dirt road (an old Indian trail) Broadway to his farm on weekends.
Daughter informed me that she rides her new bike 30 miles/day to her various NYC activities and jobs, and is growing strong legs. I advised wearing a reflector vest because my kids are precious to me. Hamilton did not need one.
Mrs. BD overschedules me with social events and outings, but I man up and try to deal with it like a good, cheerful spouse: Happy wife, happy life.
My pic is the Pearl on the far west end of 42nd St. High-rise expensive housing is booming in that area and streets are full of happy-looking people of every size, shape, color, socioeconomic type, and ethnicity. What a city!
The late lamented Marianne Matthews - ex-NewYorker living in Houston - used to love my NYC posts. These days (except for Bulldog) I mostly get grouchy comments. I promise that if you spent a few days banging around the City with us you would change your tune.
We consume a fair amount of ricotta in our house. It's a versatile substance, but I like it on good bread with a slice of tomato and some salt, or some jam or jelly.
Undaunted: Attended a charity event last night at which Dinesh D'Souza was the main speaker. A Christian social conservative, entertaining and forceful speaker. He noted that he has had a bumpy year or so (no kidding) and that he has a new documentary coming out next year. I liked him. I just don't get the big fuss about physician-assisted suicide. What's wrong with a little morphine to ease the dying?
Democratic
elites don’t seem to care much about equality - See more at:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/democratic-elites-dont-seem-to-care-much-about-equality-sentences-to-ponder.html#sthash.CxM20UTA.dpuf
Says Moonbattery: "She has achieved exactly one thing in her life: marrying a dirtbag who constantly cheated on her but who thanks to Ross Perot was elected president."
"Since Slovakia is a Christian country, we cannot tolerate an influx of 300,000-400,000 Muslim immigrants who would like to start building mosques all over our land and trying to change the nature, culture and values of the state.... If we do not start telling the truth about migration, we will never move from this spot." — Prime Minister Robert Fico, Slovakia.
Getting involved in the intolerance of intolerance racket is a political tar baby. Everybody gets mad and intolerant of each other. Meanwhile, the Asians just keep their noses to the grindstone.
Is she a Conservative or a Libertarian? Another general question - Why do the Repubs sound so hawkish re the ME? The US has no vital interests in that horrible, backward place.
Nick Cohen: Why I’ve finally given up on the left - Left-wing thought has shifted towards movements it would once have denounced as racist, imperialist and fascistic. It is insupportable.
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
I had lunch with an interesting and delightful fellow the other day. David Leff. He was giving a talk about his last book, The Last Undiscovered Place:
When Leff began to look for a suitable place to raise a family, his criteria were familiar: an affordable fixer-upper with some historical character, pleasant neighbors, good schools, walkable streets, and attractive natural surroundings. The suburbs around Hartford were uninviting, so he settled sixteen miles away in Collinsville, a small village that grew up around―indeed was largely built by―The Collins Company, once the world’s leading maker of edge tools.
Mrs. BD loved the book.
His bio is here. He may not tinker with metal in the traditional Connecticut manner, but this guy is a serious historian of New England. Also, a lawyer, a published poet, professional art photographer, volunteer fireman, professional conservationist, Boy Scout counselor, chicken-raiser, and fly-fisherman. And more. He has a new book coming out this fall.
I greatly admire and enjoy people who invest themselves so fully and productively in life and in their communities.
Here's his website. "I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; . . . I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Re that Emerson, I embrace all of the above, not just the common. Emerson was posing there, I think. Anyway, Leff loves Emerson. I have tried Emerson many times, but he always eludes me.
Dr. Sacks published a piece in the New York Times called “Sabbath,” in which he wrote, “And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.”
Digital
pedometers and Swiss health insurance, a match made in heaven - See
more at:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/the-insurance-culture-that-is-swiss.html#sthash.14mVukEq.dpuf
Seattle-area school 
Image stolen from 
I am seeing that the NJ and Bulldog are getting on board. Good American fitness and strength in mind, morals, body, and spirit is what we're about (we hope). Mens sana in corpore sano.
Have A Doughnut: 
d to have loved a chilled 
Photo: Yesterday's pickings from a friend's garden. That's some heritage tomato 
I posted about 
Sex Reassignment Is 
The problem with growing fruit is that it all ripens at once. The reward is the emotional satisfaction of walking outside and harvesting with friends and family. 
Took the kids to see 
We consume a fair amount of ricotta in our house. It's
8-Year-Olds Can’t Be Left Alone in British Columbia. No Exceptions.
I had lunch with an interesting and delightful fellow the other day. David Leff. He was giving a talk about his last book, 
Photo: Yesterday's Beauty Pageant.