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.
Any party that cannot successfully sell freedom and personal liberty doesn’t deserve power. The trick will be to explain — by word and deed — that the Democrats’ Manichean choice (Big Brother or the orphanage) is a false one, that less can be more, and that the restoration of a Republic of self-reliant citizens will benefit all Americans — not simply the government class and its clients.
Science, strictly speaking, explains everything but creativity. Not only that, but in its reductionist mania, it generally attempts to explain the creative via the uncreative, the intelligent via the mindless, freedom via necessity, and the living via the lifeless. It just waves a magic wand over the ontological discontinuities and pretends this is an explanation.
I noticed this yesterday while thumbing through a recent Scientific American in the orthopedist's office. No matter what subject they touched -- the Big Bang, the origin of life, the intersection of ideology and science -- every author had the same adolescent tone of smug superiority to go along with their dull absence of style and their one-dimensional shallowness of thought.
So is this: Brown University to sponsor Naked Week:
"The Facebook event page, also indicates that the six-day program will include a clothed event called “Stripping Privilege: Undressing the Isms” on Wednesday which will include discussion on “power, privilege, race, class, gender, ability, and other isms how they intersect with nudity, body image, nudity in relation to (de)sexuality, etc.”"
How about the "Elvis" from Mississippi? Peanut butter, fried banana, and bacon on toast, with a splash of hot sauce on top. Sounds ok with me. Gimme one, to check it out:
We will plant Dad's ashes next to Mom's at the Congo church cemetery in the Massachusetts Berkshires in a week or two. I have some ancestors buried there, but the older ones were buried on the farm's own adjacent cemetery because the church and its burial ground were not built until 1817. I have always appreciated the olde epitaph:
Behold my friends as you pass by As you are now, so once was I As I am now, soon you shall be Give thyself to God and follow me.
While visiting northern Italy, I jotted down some menu items we saw, and many of which we tried. These are typical antipasti, primis, or secondis:
Beef carpaccio Duck and horse carpaccio Ossa Bucco Antipasto misto Tagliatelle with truffle Tagliatelle with butter and sage Seared Tuna with pepper sauce Braised turkey breast with onion sauce Horse stew on polenta Salmon with zucchini blossoms with Prosecca sauce Gnocchi with porcini and truffle Chicken liver with balsamic sauce Triple fish carpaccio Grilled octopus with pesto sauce Rabbit stew on polenta Truffle risotto with smoked goose breast
That's Italian! As I said before, none of these treats taste as good as they should without wine.
If I want a dessert, my preference is a plate of mixed local cheeses with a couple of figs. Cafes change their menus daily, depending on what they have, and post them outside. Here's one, in Verona. Macceroncini in this context refers to thin tagliatelle:
Street scene, early morning, Verona a week or two ago. Everybody loves Verona.What Verona lacks is a 24-hr Dunkin Donuts.
- GPS is very handy in Europe, but 10% of the time she will direct you to the most direct route instead of the most sensible route. I got some grey hairs from her direct route up in the Alps. No guardrails, cliffs, etc. Then a narrow tunnel. Exciting. Wakes you up. The locals zoom their beemers and Harleys along the edge of the cliffs.
- In addition to la bella figura, you can tell Italians from tourists because in town they ride bikes, Vespas, or motorcycles, have dogs, and are constantly smoking and drinking. Their dogs are always arguing in the street. And they kiss each other when they meet friends on the passagiatta.
- For Alpine hiking, you need Medium Weight hiking boots and a backpack with water.
- Nobody takes an AmEx card in Europe anymore
- Your cash evaporates while traveling. Bring more than you think you'll need, and inform your credit cards about your trip or they might freeze them when you use an ATM. Generally speaking, they want cash. Especially the restaurants. Many of the good ones, for locals, will not take any credit cards.
- In northern Italy, they only provide balsamic vinegar. Fine with me.
- In the Milan airport, we saw at least three women with burkhas and all that. One had a Ferragamo bag, the other two had Prada. Mrs. BD was impressed that they had found a way to show off. Their husbands looked like terrorists, and their kids acted bratty and out of control. They rushed off when the Emirates Air flight was announced.
- A reader asked why we "always" go to Italy. We don't only go there (our trips this year have included Georgia and Cape Cod), but there is no one Italy. There are a bunch of provinces and old city states with their own traditions and cultures that have only been politically united for 100 years, and are still far from socially united. As you saw in my travelogue, we spent 4 days in a purely German-speaking part of Italy (well, German and Ladin) where they make German food. Think Scotland vs. England, or Vermont vs. Texas.
- Food: In northern Italy (ie north of Siena and Emilia-Romagna) they cook mostly with butter, not olive oil. Their pastas are tagliatelle egg noodles (real good) and tortellini (which I hate). For carbs, they are big on risotto, polenta, and gnocchi (all good). Their very fine Lasagnas are soft, and have nutmeg. They like to cook with truffle and truffle oil, and they love their Porcinis. They like meat (steak, roast beef, rabbit, and horse) and seafood. Most menus have octopus in some form. I like any seafood. Italian foods are designed to be consumed with wine and I can attest that they are not as tasty without it.
- Weather: Generally, I'd try to avoid southern Europe in July and August. Too hot, and too many tourists.
16:1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property.
16:2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.'
16:3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.
16:4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.'
16:5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
16:6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.'
16:7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.'
16:8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
16:9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
16:10 "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.
16:11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?
16:12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?
16:13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth
We learned an excellent lesson from from clearing out my parents' house.
Attic, basement, storage rooms. We have felt inspired in a strange way by it all, and have begun to work on clearing out our own spaces. Lots of our stuff we have not used in years seems quite desirable and useful to our Mexican immigrant helpers.
The rest of it goes to the dumpster. "Might want it someday" means "never."
It's a breakfast drink, the Italian version of cafe au lait.
In Italy, they make it with beautiful swirls. After noon, you drink this in the photo for your needed jolt (but you can get "Cafe Americano" if you ask - all they do is to put a double espresso in a cup, and add water. 2.5 Euros for that, but it's Monopoly money. However, they always serve that Americano with a little thing of hot milk, which is good). Some hotels make ordinary American-style coffee, and it is excellent.
A Sherwood family Bible (ancestors from Greenwich, CT). Congregationalists, like almost everybody in New England at the time. Somebody scribbled comments on some of the NT verses.
Image via 
5 Ways to 
