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.
Why Do Most Jews Stay with Obama? When will American Jews finally realize that the endgame of Obama’s "Progressive" dream will be their nightmare?
The GOP Can Attract Young Black Voters—And Already Has - One in five black men under age 30 voted for Romney; youngest 'millennials' lean even more conservative.
Rising to the Authoritarian Challengeby Daniel Calingaert- U.S. policy on democracy support, especially
during the Obama administration, has been largely reactive. We seem to
be constantly playing (and mostly losing) a giant game of Whac-a-Mole.
Supporting democracy doesn't work out well. People frequently elect dictators.Democratic republics are best suited to places with the cultural and historical underpinnings to support it.
Thinking about the Great War 100 years ago. A terrible, pointless war that never should have happened. Historians say that WW2 was just a continuation of it.
The best movie I've seen about the Great War is The Shooting Party. There is no war in it except allusions to it in the last 30 seconds.
Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends. In the Great War eight million people were destroyed because two persons, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his Consort, had been shot.… [T]he Great War was more ironic than any before or since. It was a hideous embarrassment to the prevailing Meliorist myth which had dominated the public consciousness for a century. It reversed the Idea of Progress.
You should be happy when the market tumbles - If you are continuing to add money to an investment fund, you're better off with lower stock prices in the short term.
I know a few guys who were dragged to see the Charles James Beyond Fashion show at the Metropolitan Museum. I was, last weekend. Lots of husbands there being good sports, and lots of fashionistas of all varieties (taking notes and detailed close-up photos of stitching, etc).
I can assert that I know more about couture dress-making now than I did before. It is complicated, detailed, and difficult to do.
I like cooked potherbs, aka a "mess o' greens" -of any sort: collards, turnip tops, dandelion, kale, chard, spinach, cabbage. Especially fond of collard greens, even though they are far from typical Yankee cookin'. The Romans got their collards from the Greeks (along with everything else), so collards have a long history as food.
I will not prepare raw greens, such as salad, but have been known to eat that rodent food when placed in front of me. My theory is that greens are meant to be cooked, either with a bit of meat, or with garlic and olive oil. But collards require meat.
If there are no spare ham hocks in the fridge, I cook them with bacon or a couple of slices of ham, and I like them with bits of bacon and/or chopped onion on top. Collards are in the cabbage family, and I love cabbage in any form due to my northern European peasant roots (I'll try to remember to post my favorite cabbage recipes in the fall). Collards do not smell good when cooking, and you just have to put up with it.
Here's some collard history, and a basic Southern collard recipe. It's a given that collards and their juice have to be served with corn bread, even if you live north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Gimme some smoked short ribs or pulled pork, a bowl of collards, some corn bread, and a couple of beers, and this New England Yankee is close to heaven.
Photo: Collards
Addendum: Re raw greens, I forgot to mention cole slaw, known as "ragbag" among old timey Yankees. Home-made ragbag is a wonderful thing. I guess it's a salad, of sorts, and it works well with barbecue and just about anything else, including fresh fried codfish or a plate of fried oysters. Which reminds me that fried oysters were once food for the poor - hence the "poor boy" fried oyster sandwich. Yum.
One of my favorite chefs in town makes cucumber slaw. Slivered cucumber with slivered carrot with a vinaigrette.
If you're interested in how the Lectionary came to be, a reader sent in this article about it.The Common Lectionary is now used in many if not most Christian sects in the US.
Matthew 14:22-33
14:22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.
14:23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,
14:24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.
14:25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.
14:26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear.
14:27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."
14:28 Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water."
14:29 He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.
14:30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
14:31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"
14:32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
14:33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
A big moon in Manhattan tonight. Summer evenings in NYC are the best. Everybody out for a stroll - a passagiatta worthy of Italy. That pic is from the steps of the Met Museum, which was packed with people today all of them friendly and polite and many speaking strange languages.
Not everybody is in the Hamptons, and international tourists are everywhere taking photos of everything. Same as I do. I can recommend it as a summer vacation destination.
Since I learned this week that talking about gardening is racist and classist (but is it sexist too?), I need to do more of it to offend our sensitive readers.
The E.U. is just the latest example of the powerful Enlightenment idea that human nature and civilization, through the expansion of scientific knowledge, are progressing away from the cruelty, oppression, and collective violence created by irrational superstition, religion, and ethnic or nationalist loyalties. Once liberated from this destructive ignorance, people can create political and social orders that will promote peace, social justice, political freedom, and prosperity. Most important will be what Immanuel Kant, in his influential 1795 essay “Perpetual Peace,” called a “federation of free states” that would form a “pacific alliance . . . different from a treaty of peace, . . . inasmuch as it would forever terminate all wars.” Kant predicated the possibility of such global peace on “the uniformity of the progress of the human mind.” A universal human nature progressively becoming more rational and possessing more knowledge about itself and the world can craft a global order that would lessen if not eliminate the evils that had afflicted the human race for all of its previous history.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings is an annually-reposted Saturday Verse, but it comes to mind now because so many have been posting or linking this poem lately. A little background here.Many do not know that Kipling lived for many years in Vermont.After his son was killed in WW 1, and a daughter died of illness, he sought the eternal verities.The kids today do not have copybooks.
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place; But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four — And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man — There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: — That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
My first "firearms" were BB guns and pellet guns, not counting bows and arrows. I was shooting BBs at targets when I was 7. My first real firearm was this old 20 ga. Iver Johnson single shot which my Grandpa gave me. It was an oldie then.
Updated list of 29 – Actually 30 – excuses
for the 18 year ‘pause’ in global warming – ‘If you can’t explain the
‘pause’, you can’t explain the cause…’
The modern territorial state, as a post-imperial era expression of nationalist ideology in the West, does not so well fit the Arabs (and many other non-Western ethno-linguistic groups) whose history supplied none of the predicates.
Who could? The UN, the UK, Germany, France, the US, Israel, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, Italy, the Saudis, Turkey, Quatar, Iran, Russia, Iraq, etc. - all could help easily, within hours. Who will step up today?
All they need is water, food, tents, shovels, and maybe some machine guns air-dropped to them prevent a Biblical-style genocide. Where is everybody? On vacation?
9-1-1 Dispatcher’s Insane Instructions To Woman Whose House Was Being Robbed: “Put Down The Gun”
What they’re teaching
in California is not history, but rather homosexual folklore, replete
with cartoonish villains, blameless victims, and courageous heroes
Scotland has passed and is beginning to implement a law which assigns every child in Scotland from birth to age eighteen a “named person,” selected by the government, whose job it is to “promote, support, or safeguard the wellbeing” of the child. Parents will not have a choice about whether or not to accept the assignment of an outside government busybody to their children. Some proponents of the law claim that “Families are not required to accept advice” from the named person.
Pardon me if I consider that to be patently disingenuous...
When I read this, I wish he were back in the government. A quote:
If you look at the entire radar screen of things developing both domestically and internationally, we are plunging deep into a perfect storm of policy failure. The American Imperium is collapsing. There is blowback everywhere. The wreckage of prior policy mistakes from our interventionist foreign policy is coming home to roost. The Ukraine is one area at ground zero for that.
But second, monetary central planning is now reaching a dead-end. It is inflating the third financial bubble of the century and the Fed is now clueless as to how it will manage to unwind the massive balance sheet expansion it has been undertaking.
And third, the fiscal doomsday machine continues to crank on. Washington is ignoring the fact that we are six years into a business cycle expansion and we are still running massive deficits and there is no cushion for the next upset that comes to the economy.
Assigned to bring a large platter of cold red meat to an outdoor supper party last weekend.
Decided to bring a platter of almost-carpaccio - thick Costco New York Strip grilled very rare - just a few minutes per side to sear it, cooled off, then sliced thin with my amazing meat knife. Although we love carpaccio, not everybody does so I sometimes fake it by sizzling the surface for about 3 minutes per side.
Decorate at time of serving with salt and pepper, some shaved Parmesan, and a splash of truffle oil and serve the platter on a bed of arugula or dandelion. Nice treat.
Photo shows one way it can be done. Yes, lemon can be ok with rare meat. Italians do like that. I'd say either truffle oil or lemon - not both.
World’s oldest eel dies at 155 in Swedish well
Farmers’ Kids 
I like cooked potherbs, aka a "mess o' greens" -of any sort: collards, turnip tops, dandelion, kale, chard, spinach, cabbage. Especially fond of collard greens, even though they are far from typical Yankee cookin'. The Romans got their collards from the Greeks (along with everything else), so collards have a long history as food.
An 
The Gods of the Copybook Headings is an annually-reposted Saturday Verse, but it comes to mind now because so many have been posting or linking this poem lately. A little background
Updated list of 29 – Actually 30 – excuses 
I'm sorry but I forget where I found that new
Assigned to bring a large platter of cold red meat to an outdoor supper party last weekend.