Maggie's Farm

Was John le Carre a spook? Only sort-of: John le Carré: 'I was a secret even to myself'

A fine fiction writer and storyteller. Tinker Tailor is the best.

Psalm 23

 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;

23:3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.

23:4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me.

23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

My Lefty, Massachusetts resident, Boston-educated sis today: "I just want to know why we allow any immigrants into our country anymore. Are we crazy?"

Germany: It's illegal to complain about parasitic, Western-civilization-hating middle-eastern immigrants

PC has turned Europe into the Thought Police we thought they had turned their backs on. Everybody knows that regular Europeans hate the Muslim invasion imposed upon them by their moral and intellectual superiors.

The politics of dolls?

"It’s hard to grasp now just how intoxicating it was as a young girl to hear Gloria Steinem tell us we could be anything we wanted to be."

Pre-school "education" -  A Bad Idea That Refuses to Die

It used to be called "babysitting"

Is there a connection between college grade inflation and the higher education bubble?

Related,  The Lake Wobegone Effect at Dartmouth

"A"s cost a lot of money

Climate hawks have some explaining to do

Author has his facts wrong

Mexican immigration wave ended years ago

Terror Experts: Boston Attack a Victory for Islamic Jihad

Report: 3 arrested in New Bedford in connection to bombing suspect

Immediately Following Arrest of Boston Bomber – Media Weeps for Jihadist Killer

There is a profound moral confusion going on

Letter from the Family of Lu Lingzi

Naming of Boston suspects foils racialist, sociological agendas

The "Borat Boys" were overly-assimiliated

New York Times shows sympathy for Boston terrorist suspects

The Left's Spin on Boston Marathon's Chechen Terrorists

The U.S. Anti-Muslim Crowd Is Quite Pleased with Itself

"Coexist" - Steyn on the politicization of mass murder

Via Driscoll:

In many ways this is a replay of the smug anti-American asininity of the Left during the Cold War. The idea that the Soviet Union was a threat was often treated as a paranoid delusion, while the “real” threat from the domestic American right was a grave danger. Hitler was dead. Germany and Japan were U.S. allies. But Communism, which was killing and enslaving hundreds of millions before our eyes, just wasn’t something to get worked up about — at least not compared with the super-scary John Birch Society.

It’s important to realize that this remains a venerable American cottage industry.

Toon below via Lucianne:

A Friday free ad for Bob: Gotta Serve Somebody (live, 1979)

Live manhunt, here. It's sort-of addictive, especially with the local accents: "They're bringin' sammiches to the troopahs."  "We have a small cah, a Honder here heading up Bahston Boulevahd." Mostly Irish, some Italian, all Bahston.

The professionalism is impressive, but not surprising. They shut down the entire city, and Watertown, to find this bad guy, but have obviously not found him yet. Any accomplices, I am sure, are being sought off radio.

For the latest updates on Boston, turn on your radio for the events of last night. It's one heck of a story this morning. Boston police have provisionally identified the two men as suspects in a string of violent incidents outside of Boston as Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi, both here on student visas. (that appears to be wrong info)

War and Sports Shape Better Artificial Limbs

The Faithful Executioner:  Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century (h/t Vanderleun)

Sierra Club Authorizes “Civil Disobedience” Against Tar Sands

Roger Kimball:  Calling a spade a spade in Boston

Get rid of the corporate income tax. It's not worth it, and there are better ways to collect the money.

Why is the free market retreating and why is the state always advancing?

Henninger: Clinging to Guns—and Abortion - Everyone clings to something, and we now know what liberals cling to.

Gun Control Vote Exposes Clueless MSM

The Desperation of Obamacare Advocates

Gallup Poll: Majority Think Wealth Should Be Distributed More Evenly

George Will:

    Government used to spend primarily on the production of things — roads, dams, bridges, military forces. There can be only so many of such goods. Now, DeMuth says, government spends primarily for consumption:

    “The possibilities for increasing the kind, level, quality and availability of benefits are practically unlimited. This is the ultimate source of today’s debt predicament. More borrowing for more consumption has no natural stopping point short of imploding on itself.”

    Funding the welfare state by vast borrowing and regulatory taxation hides the costs from the public. Hence its political potency. Until the implosion.

Not many people read poems these days, unless they happen to also be song lyrics. Without the lyre, poetry must make its own music somehow. Furthermore, poetry is written to be heard, not read. Just as with Shakespeare's plays, the words on paper are dead and only voice can bring them to life.

(The reading of Milton's classic On Time on Dr. Merc's sim-gaming post here this morning is a perfect example.)

Here at Maggie's, we have always posted a Saturday Verse, with the general advice to read them out loud. One poem per week, like one masterpiece of art, is about all most people can or are willing to process. We might be tempted to read more poetry if they were Juvenal writing poems from the standpoint of a Roman switch-hitting prostitute servicing both his master and his master's wife to good and profitable effect. The wife first, one might hope.

Via Never Yet Melted's Contemporary Poetry: High-Minded and Evolved, a fine mini-essay by David Yezzi: The Bitter Fool.

Ten Reasons Kids Leave the Church

Global warming causing huge storms on Mars

The Top 5 Most Irritating Terms In Evolution Reporting

Nanny Bloomberg very pissed that his $ can't buy the US Senate

Is it time to end ethanol vehicle fuel mandates? - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/16/is-it-time-to-end-ethanol-vehicle-fuel-mandates/#more-84373

Top Democrat Baucus Sees 'Huge Train Wreck' for Obamacare

For-profit Higher Ed is Fine - Government Funding is the Problem

President blames the NRA

The NRA represents millions of good Americans

Obama's Preschool Push Is Backed By Faulty Evidence

Tuition fees well-spent

The End of Full-Time Work in the American Retail Service Sector

Nation's Largest Theater Chain Cuts Work-Week Thanks to Obamacare as Key Senate Architect Calls It a "Train-Wreck"

Last Friday.

Always fun to see something there, but I never understood why anybody thought it was a good idea to clump so much of the highbrow performance space in one place. Why not spread it around town as it was before?

Well, that's just the way planners think. They want to organize us whether we want to be organized or not.

No you don't, and you cannot without falling victim to the Pathetic Fallacy. We cannot know the world they live in. They are aliens.

We can enjoy dogs, but cannot truly love them because we cannot know them: Man and Beast.

One quote:

For 2,500 years it has been known to the students of nature that the more one learns about animals, the more wonderful they become. The observation stands confirmed by the instruments of both science and art, but the animals are most instructively perceived when they are seen, as they were by Beston from the beach on Cape Cod, as other nations complete in themselves, “gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”

Hurray for Earth Day: Emma Watson bares body for Earth Day

Any excuse will suffice to get nekked with cameras. I think Gaia makes her hot.

Playful fun: The Psychology of Submission - We pull back the covers on steamy bedroom power plays.

Tie me up, ladies, and have your way with me? Hmmm. Maybe...

PSA test leads to further procedures, harms: study

Queer Gardens, for college credit

If anybody calls my gardens queer, I'll slap you, bitch

This Slacker Doesn't Even Work Weekends

A real New Yorker. Beautiful life, working at 90 1/2.

Unsubstantiated accusations against my son by a former girlfriend landed him
before a nightmarish college tribunal.

More Columbia and Cornell co-eds seeking “Sugar Daddies”

They are termed "whores." Ancient profession. More kindly, "mistresses." Free market Capitalism at work. Everything has a market price including bodies whether dead or alive.

I have this problem all the time

If race is to be taken into account, what percentage should an individual possess?

I have 6.25% Redskin blood. Can I get anything free because of my historical oppression? I have not had my Neanderthal level checked yet, but it's probably pretty high too. Endangered species to boot, conservative Neanderthals who want to bring back cave dwelling in the Ice Age.

Cheap: The miracle of the marketplace brings tropical fruit from 2,000 miles away in Colombia to my local grocery store

Homeland Security Website: 'Learn How DHS Helps Keep Our Nation Safe'

You could close the whole dumb Bush boondoggle tomorrow and it would make no difference

What is California's biggest problem?

It's the weather! Maybe they would prefer Maine, where it's 37 degrees F this morning, and there is still a foot of snow on the ground.

Californians: Prepare For A 50% Hike In Pension Costs

The Wreck of the Euro:

 ...with the exception of communism itself, the euro has been the biggest economic catastrophe to befall the continent (and the world) since the 1930s. Politicians in Europe thought they were living in a post-historical period in which mistakes didn’t really matter all that much. They were horribly wrong, and the wreck of the euro is blighting lives and embittering spirits on a truly staggering scale.

It's done. Dead, but not buried yet.

Education fact of the day: DC charter schools now enroll 43% of the city’s students, with plans to expand further

Gun control bill in peril

The Men Responsible for Starving Egyptian Families - The ship is sinking, and the cry is, "Women and children last!"

...even if Maduro’s dubious election victory is allowed to stand, the Chávez revolution is in big trouble.

Boston: Mr. Rogers Knows (Photo via Drudge)

Streetcars: an inconvenient truth

Florida Battles Slimy Invasion by Giant Snails

Escargots? Molluscs are tasty.

India's lions and tigers being eliminated by poachers

All about dark matter

When God Is Your Therapist

The poop trucks of Dubai

Legalize Polygamy!

Conn Carroll: Fracking revolutionized American energy as green energy failed

California's Blue Civil War: Knives Drawn in Education Fight

It's for the children

It's Time to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba - The U.S. government has been tireless in pursuing a policy that does not look better with time

I agree.

10th Ave in the lower 60s, on Friday: Italian deli on the far left corner, then French, then Caribbean, then Thai, then Turkish - then American! Like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, you could joyfully eat your way down the street. (The Irish pub is on the other side of the street.)

It is wonderful.

Triple play: Because Satan Is a Yankees Fan

The Real Reason No One's Buying PCs Anymore: They've Gotten Too Good

Or...Did Windows 8 kill PC sales?

Paul LePage: Beretta, Colt and Magpul—Come to Maine

Senate Uses Doctors for Gun Control

NYT Admits Union Pensions Aren’t Sacred

Media Acknowledge Blowing Gosnell Story, Pledge Extensive Coverage

L.A. Times: "Immigration bill would spark surge of legal arrivals"

James Lovelock: A man for all seasons - The guru of Gaia is a maverick environmentalist who supports fracking and nuclear power. Does he believe the human race has a future?

The Left's Fantasy of Progress

Study: CA High-Speed Rail Will Lose $124-$373 Million A Year

Top Obamacare Adviser: Doctors Told to Focus on “Cost Value” and Volume… Not the Patient

GosnellGate: It’s the A-Word

Professor Yarbrough responds, re the Bowdoin expose

Jesus Never Said I Couldn’t Paint the Baby

The Decline of Obama - How to lose friends and influence.

Frank Bruni on politicians as love gluttons

Sultan:

Kermit Gosnell will be locked up. There will be a brief spurt of inspections. And then things will go on as before and the empowerment educators who wear "I Had an Abortion" t-shirts while they drive to the soccer games of their children in some placid suburb will sleep well at night knowing that somewhere in Philly, NYC and LA there are rough men doing violence to the wombs of desperate women and the lives of their unborn children on behalf of their ideologies and policies. Rough men in dark places doing he inevitable dirty work in the world they made.

Via Ricochet's The Price of Utopia:

Now is the time when we, as feminists, can show we're not afraid to confront the difficult and unpleasant realities of abortion -- the disturbing bloody images, the fact that sometimes women don't actually have a Very Good Reason to be seeking one, and even the unfortunate physical and emotional consequences that sometimes follow. Once we acknowledge that these things are there and real and unpleasant, we can continue to assert our right to do it anyway, and in doing this, remove their power over us.

Reminder: Obama supported infanticide

Huge gender gap persists in college degrees but gets no attention

Bernie Sanders: Warming is not a hoax

Californians Sign Petition to Ban and Confiscate Firearms

Capriles almost won in Venezuela

I was chatting, this weekend, about how trolleys became obsolete when cars and buses developed. Buses are far more flexible, subways are quicker, and people love their cars. The Model T killed the trolley. With car traffic, trolleys are not much faster than walking. I have to admit, though, that the trolleys - and subways - in Vienna are great and easy for a tourist to figure out. However, Vienna has little car traffic.

I missed this one: Was the Rise of Car Ownership Responsible for the Midcentury Homeownership Boom in the US?

I heard this fellow Tom Corley interviewed on the radio last week. He studies the life habits of prosperous people compared to less prosperous people.

He said nothing surprising. For a few examples, he said the prosperous tend to delay gratification, exercise, set life goals, make life plans, volunteer, severely restrict their kids' TV and computer time, set examples of hard work and self-discipline for their kids, to be constructive with their time, and to be frugal except in matters of health and charity.

Sounds old-fashioned, doesn't it? Socio-cultural-character tendencies. These things have not made me rich, but they have made my life better. People tease me about my frugality, but I am never frugal about truly life-enriching things and I hate being slothful. God did not make me to sit on my butt.

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)

9:1 Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest

9:2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

9:3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

9:4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

9:5 He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

9:6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."

9:7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one.

9:8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

9:9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

9:10 Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." He answered, "Here I am, Lord."

9:11 The Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying,

9:12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight."

9:13 But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem;

9:14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name."

9:15 But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel;

9:16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name."

9:17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."

9:18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized,

9:19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus,

9:20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."

Of course, it's not classic liberalism, but old-fashioned statism. An Entomologist's-Eye View of Predatory Liberalism:

Marriage -- or the sacralization of the male-female union -- is the foundation of civilization, so the left's attack on it is utterly predictable.

We like to eat lots of those skinny French beans. We steam them in Costco-style bulk, and they last a week.

Mrs. BD likes to dress them with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon (which is the Italian way with vegetables), but I prefer olive oil and wine vinegar. And salt of course.

Add a little crumbled goat cheese or Feta cheese, some bacon, maybe a chopped tomato, and you can make a fine lunch out of them.

The Commencement-Speaker Litmus Test

Don’t forget parents share genes with their offspring

Yes, that's the problem

Another political change story

Why Liberals support Gun Control

State power

Billionaire Bloomberg Badgers Moms … Who Suck Baby Binkies?

Guy has gone crazy. Binkies are stupid, but is that his biggest problem?

Examining New York politics is like dipping a ladle into the sewer

For the past 200 years...but the vigor and ambition of the people outweighs the pond-scum pols

Sonnet 46

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie--
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes--
But the defendant doth that plea deny
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impanneled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:
   As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,
   And my heart's right thy inward love of heart.

I like the witty way he echoes the legal metaphor in the convoluted puzzle of words and ideas, which forces your brain to work to untangle it. Crafty guy, was he not? A way with words, too.

Name, and date of birth if possible, please.

This beauty was parked next to us in the Lincoln Center parking lot tonight. We went in with friends to see the Nederlands Dance Co. on one of their very rare visits to the US, at the David A. Koch Theater. All 3 performances were sold out, unsurprisingly, but we got lucky.

On the drive home, Mrs. BD delivered a fine exposition, on our demand, of what the intentions were of their new choreographer team (splaining that it was less about rhythm and more like talking in movement). Their 20-person troupe is remarkably skilled. Then the topic of Sophie Guillam somehow came up, so after that she waxed eloquent about Sophie Guillam's performance in Sleeping Beauty with the Royal Ballet, which she had taken a BD daughter to see in NYC a few years ago. Our daughter had said to her Mom in the lobby - "Mom - Look! There's a real Princess." Her Mom said "No, sweetie, somebody just dressed up for the opening," and then turned and looked and saw it was Princess Margaret dressed in princess clothes to the nines, jewels, tiara, and a long green gown with a couple of attendants and guards.

Daughter had just thrown a sun dress over her wet bathing suit, rushing from swim team practice, never having combed her wet hair. She certainly felt underdressed. It seems that was an immortal performance because Guillam could do things with Sleeping Beauty that nobody else alive could do. Guillam later switched to modern dance because she became bored with her mastery of Ballet technique and wanted new expressive challenges.

We had a nice seafood supper first at the Atlantic Grill down the street from Lincoln Center.

NYC is always a blast for us, a jolt of vitality, a change of pace.

It's been many years since we have bought either fresh or dried Thyme at the store. It's the easiest herb to grow in full sun and dry, lousy soil, and it comes back after hard freezes and cold winters. An advantage is that the leaves stay on the plant all winter, so you can just go out and scratch the snow off and harvest the sprigs you need. (I just throw the sprigs in with the leaves on, so my cooking often ends up with denuded Thyme sprigs in it.)  Cooking with Thyme.

Another advantage is simply the smell it creates in a garden on a hot summer day. 4 or 5 small plants in the Spring will spread all over, only needing a little watering the first year to get started.

Thyme is the ultimate "savoury" flavor, but it's mild enough to make it difficult to over-use. I think it's basic to most stews and soups, Italian or otherwise. My chef friend uses it in muffins and biscuits, and on vegetables. She uses chopped Thyme blossoms on fruit cocktail. It has to be part of any bouquet garni.

Thyme comes in many varieties, some man-made and some wild. Most is Thymus vulgaris - common Thyme, with variants thereof. I assume it has Mediterranean origins. In the Massachusetts Berkshires, we have acres of Creeping Thyme as weeds in the less-fertile meadows, and my Mom always planted it between flagstones. Smells good in the summer when stepping on it, but watch out for the bees.

As a lady with refined sensibilities, Mom was always attentive to the small, charming details of life. There were always small vases of wildflowers around.