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 many other wonderful details, the book undermines the notions that the Europeans arrived to find a primeval land on which the Indians left hardly a footprint. Quite the opposite is true. For example, the Northeast Indians had 100-acre cornfields, scattered wherever the soil was rich, and did massive burnings of their woodlands every year to rewind forest succession, for game management, and to clear the underbush. They viewed the woods as their gardens and farms, and when they made fields, they cleared them to the point of removing the stumps. No slash-and-burn: permanent farm fields that were hard-won with stone axes and fire. The Pilgrims took advantage of their abandoned fields in Massachusetts.
Similarly, the Amazonian Indians turned the rain forest into their own orchards. At least 20% of the Amazonian forest is believed to be dominated by fruit- and nut-bearing trees planted by Indians for their use. That's not to mention their manioc plantations. And the South American Indians, like the Meso-Americans, developed massive irrigation systems to support their populations.
There was little of the New World that had not been shaped by Indian activities, except for the mountains and deserts - and the Incas populated the Andes quite successfully.
I also liked learning about the Indian prophet Deganawida, the Northeast "Peacemaker" born, it was said, of a virgin birth. Hiawatha, the great Indian orator and politician, was one of his followers. Some of those folks are some of my ancestors.
Finally, the book got me interested in Cahokia, the largest Indian city north of Mexico with a top population of 15-20,000 farmers. The mound-building city in Illinois was abandoned 300 years before Columbus. Image on right is what Cahokia's mounds looked like.
(For a variety of reasons, many mysterious, the New World experienced enormous population declines from their millions before Columbus, making conquest and colonization immigration a much easier task. European illnesses like the common cold and flu viruses which could be fatal to Indians just made it all worse, it seems. )
My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.
North Providence retiree Jamie Reilly left her job as a secretary at age 50, thinking her 30 years of state employment would mean good benefits during her later years. But now she said she may be forced to re-enter the workforce at age 55 because the state has put off pension increases.
"I counted on that money," Reilly said of the increases, which she estimates would have started at $700 to $1,000 a year. "I retired knowing I was going to get a certain amount of money. You work all your life and you plan, and they take it away from you."
Pic: It's Oktoberfest. That's my beer and smokes from the deck of a Danube riverboat a couple of years ago. Just a boatride. Yes, that is the original Czech Budweiser
The Obama of the imagination is the media’s Obama. Out of their fascination with the color of his skin and their mindless awe at his windy teleprompted rhetoric, they constructed a man of stature and accomplishment. Now, with the White House on the line, they’re waging an ongoing battle against the undeniable evidence that he has never been, in fact, that man. The result in these quadrennial autumn days has been media coverage of a fantasy election, an election in the news that may bear no relation whatsoever to the election as it is.
Bow is the way to do it, the hard way. That's a lot of meat. A reader sent us a link to his pics. Here's one of them (I still think it's best game management to harvest the cows instead of the alpha males, but whatever).
I always wonder how one walks around the woods with a rack like that. I could not do it.
... it was the first time in his career that he shared a debate stage with a serious opponent.
Think about it: John McCain was feeble. Alan Keyes, whom Obama beat in his 2004 Senate campaign, was crazy. All the Democrats who ran in 2008 were preposterous except Hillary Clinton, and she, as a beneficiary of nepotism, was highly overrated as a politician. He used Chicago-style dirty tricks to dispatch his original opponent in 2004, as well as the state senator he replaced back in the 1990s. The test he failed last night is one to which he had never been put.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
(I do not want to ruin this magical piece by getting pedantic, but check those rhymes.)
Obama has never been the nation’s most forceful debater, and he makes no secret of his disdain for the theatrical side of politics. If his conduct on the debate stage with Romney seemed oddly passive, it was in some ways just another manifestation of the president’s restrained approach to communicating with the electorate, whom he seems to believe — in the face of all existing evidence — are not swayed by electoral artifice.
First box arrived from Bluestone Perennials. Perfect timing to complete the installation of the new beds. Small plants now, but by June they will crowd out the weeds.
In case you're interested, here's what I am putting in them (much already done in the past 2 weeks):
Pink Knock-Out Roses Little Bunny Fountain Grass Dwarf Red Sedum Nepeta, tall blue and low white Creeping Phlox Boxwood Perennial Geranium Narcissus Scilla (Bluebell) Salvia Stella D'oro Daylily Giant Allium Asian Lily Aster Phlox Daisy Agastache Heliocanthus Red Salvia (Wild Thing) in defiance of Mrs. BD who believes that red is tacky in a garden.
Most of these good for Hummingbirds and butterflies. Many of them are transplants from places where they aren't thriving. If any annuals are needed, obviously I will add them in the Spring. Doubt I will need any, though. Well, for the first year I might need some.
Planning, preparing, and installing a new border is great fun but, like all gardening, it lacks immediate gratification unless you live south of the freezing line.
It takes 2 years for a perennial bed to begin to mature, 1 1/2 years if first planting is in the fall. If you plant in the fall, don't fertilize until Spring.
Mitt Romney was in control from the beginning. He was the alpha male, while Barack Obama was weak, hesitant, stuttering, often apologetic. The visuals were great for Romney and awful for Obama. Obama looked small, tired, defeated after four years of failure, out of ammo.
Romney was having fun. The O just wanted to go home and turn on the TV.
Best line from Romney: “I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Romney said in the most devastating understatement of the night.
Obama was totally uncomfortable in the debate forum. As Tom Stemberg, Co-founder and former CEO of Staples said to Neil Cavuto, following the debate, “President Obama is terrific on his feet when no one is challenging him to the facts.”
What viewers saw last night was the real Obama — slow-witted, unable to think effectively on his feet, desultory in his pre-debate preparation, and thoroughly unimpressive without his beloved teleprompter.
My email from Barack at 12:42 am:
Bird Dog --
I hope I made you proud out there explaining the vision we share for this country.
Now we need to go win this election -- the most important thing that will happen tonight is what you do (or don't do) to help in the little time we have left:
I have eaten Rocky Mountain Elk steaks. Tastes like Elk, ie, similar to Moose. I have friends who hunt them. Bow, not rifle. Good stories, good adventures.
In case you are refurbishing any temperate-zone perennial borders this fall, here are some of my pics of some informal borders at the NYBG. Even informal borders need structure: a wall, a hedge, a path - some architecture.
Every plant here has a label, so I remember what a number of them are if you ask in the comments:
A pal had never heard of Murray. Here's an introduction. I find his thoughts about "social capital" most interesting but, on many topics, he is a hard-headed, liberty-oriented thinker.
Here are a few of our Murray links from very recent years:
Why Capitalism Has an Image Problem - Charles Murray examines the cloud now hanging over American business—and what today's capitalists can do about it.
Conservatives mount strong efforts to undo the damage from media bias, but there is no serious talk in conservative circles about long-term strategies for gaining control of the media and using the media to build the conservative base. Left-wing bias in the media is just accepted as a constant, as immutable, almost as if it is a law of physics. The option of having conservative moderators hitting Obama with hard questions never even seemed to be an option. For the Romney-Ryan campaign, the key questions in the current election are how to point out Obama's record without being accused of negativity by Obama's protectors in the media and how to present their positions so as not to get painted as extremists.
The left's political strategy, on the other hand, has been to gain control of the sources of information that shape the culture and, in so doing, to determine the long-term direction of the nation.
With Dylan's Not Dark Yet. She's too young and pretty to sing this song, but she pulls it off. She borrows Dylan's incredible phrasing. Buddy found this, so you know it's worth it. Trust us:
Here's another lovely offering from Severa with Vlado Kreslin (no idea what they are saying):
I like home-grown tomatoes because they taste good. My gardens have always been "organic" only because I have never had a problem with insect pests - I grow enough so that the bugs and animals can have some - and because I enrich the garden soil with manure and peat moss (which are delivered to my garden center by polluting 16-wheelers). Nothing whatsoever to do with nutrition or good old Gaia, though.
America has been subject to food faddism forever. "Organic" produce is just the latest marketing scam for the wealthy and the body-obsessed. Here's a good update on the topic: Organic Illusions
Little old lady walks into the local bank and informs the teller that she would like to deposit $250,000 in cash, and would like to discuss it with the branch manager.
She goes into the manager's little office to discuss details of her deposit, and he asks how she came upon this windfall. "Gambling," she says.
"You must be good," says he. "I am," she replied. "For example, I'll bet you $25,000 that, tomorrow morning when I come in with the cash in my lawyer's hands, your balls will be square."
"Are you serious? OK, you're on." They shake on it.
Next morning, she arrives in his office with lawyer and bulging briefcase in hand to make the deposit. Manager says "OK, great. Now, what about our little bet? My balls are just the same as they always were."
"Well," she responds, "for $25,000 I need to check for myself." He pulls down his trousers and she checks his male parts carefully while her lawyer begins banging his head on the desk.
"What's the problem?" the manager asks.
"Nothing really," the old lady answers. "It's just that I bet him $100,000. that I could have your balls in my hands in 15 minutes."
I have just finished reading 
Finally, the book got me interested in 
It's Cristoforo Colombo Day here in the USA
Image via 
Cover image from 
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Trash Cams May Monitor Discarded Federally Imposed Vegetables
Chris Matthews: 
Damn global warming!
