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.
The college pupette has been exploring the Viet Nam hinterlands, and spent a couple of days in a northern fishing village with Vietnamese friends. The young people in the villages had never seen Americans. The pupette, enjoying all of the spicey local dishes of course, managed to pick up a nice strong case of food poisoning and emailed me a medically-detailed report of that. TMI.
She's feeling a little better, now. She's a good, hearty and brave traveller. We taught her that. She'll go anywhere and do anything, doesn't mind getting lost, doesn't mind being on her own, and isn't afraid of getting sick - as long as it's all cheap. She's been almost everywhere already, without us parents - out West, Europe, etc. (All of my kids are like that. Their Mom was adventurous like that too in youth, hitchhiking all around Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East with a backpack. Now, her Mom prefers a bit more comfort in travel but still has the vigorous Go Go Hi Ho attitude to life which is a blessing for me.)
What normal college kid would want to sit at home with the old folks during winter break? Not one of them. At least ski with friends, or go somewhere fun and exciting on the cheap. Mine have never stayed at home, comfortable as it may be here at ye olde cozy Yankee cabin homestead by the fire. We preach, and try to make an example of, adventure and accumulating experience and experiences - the good ones and the bad ones. Learn more from the bad ones. As my "Oystersmiling" pupette says, "The world beckons." The world is her oyster. What a fine attitude.
Pupette was laughing in her email about spending a day in a "Commie medical clinic" next to a jolly Aussie couple with the same affliction. Aussies - always jolly, always at least half-drunk, never worrying about anything. She reports that the docs and nurses were wonderful and kind, and that she absorbed 7 bags of IV normal saline which brought her back to life. Seven bags? Sheesh. I call that "low on oil."
She's back in Saigon now, and posted a few more of her pics. The Americans in the pics are her cute self, and her pal who is working in Saigon. Excuse me - I mean Ho Chi Minh City.
Photo is a bag of Normal Saline. AKA salt water - human fluid is the same thing as sea-water, and not by accident. Nurses inject a bag of it into themselves when they have hangovers at work, or so I have heard...
It always takes David years to see the blindingly obvious. He should write his op-eds, then past-date them a few years. He is a naif, and a pussy-man too - but that's why he has his job.
Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one's fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce it as efficiently as possible. Free market capitalism is ruthless in its profit and loss discipline. This explains much of the hostility toward free market capitalism; some of it is held by businessmen. Smith recognized this hostility when he said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." He was hinting at government-backed crony capitalism, which has come to characterize much of today's businesses.
Free market capitalism has other enemies -- mostly among the intellectual elite and political tyrants. These are people who believe that they have superior wisdom to the masses and that God has ordained them to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider to be good reasons for restricting liberty, but every tyrant who has ever lived has had what he considered good reason for restricting liberty. A tyrant's agenda calls for the attenuation or the elimination of the market and what is implied by it -- voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. They want to replace the market with economic planning and regulation.
We were fortunate to see a rare performance of Puccini's one-act comedy Gianni Schicci ("Johnny Skicci") by the Chelsea Opera a year or so ago.
The vocal highlight of the opera is the famous aria O mio babbino caro, sung by the little manipulator Lauretta to her dad. "Daddy dearest, I'll have to die if you won't let me go out with Rinuccio anymore."
The trick of it is to sound like you really want to twist Dad's heartstrings. If you can sing like these ladies to your Dad, I'm sure he'll let you do whatever you want. Here's the bake-off:
(In the US) a married couple, each earning the minimum wage, investing only 10 percent of their earnings at a modest 7 percent return, retires with an annual income of more than $100,000 a year—even if they never touch the $1.5 million principle they’ll leave to their children. President George W. Bush was mocked for calling his proposal to cultivate such minimum-wage millionaires the “Ownership Society,” but it was the most important initiative of his presidency.
and
It will be considerably easier to create a market-based alternative to Social Security when there are no more Social Security checks being cut—and they are not going to be cut (cf. that $100 trillion unfunded liability). If we’re lucky and smart, we’ll start doing it before the Social Security checks stop. And it won’t just be Social Security: Medicare and Medicaid are going away, too, whether we like it or not. Most of the welfare state will either wither away entirely or be severely truncated. Americans will have the opportunity to rediscover such hoary-sounding virtues as thrift and independence, and their joint product, liberty. All of which turns out to be worth having in a way that is not nearly so corny and Tea Party–sounding and tricorn-wearing as you might think. That’s the optimistic take, and there is reason to believe that this is the more accurate forecast.
A reader sent us this info about the Romney lads whose pics we posted this morning:
Taggart Romney (1970)- Managing Partner at Solamere Capital , CMO at L.A. Dodgers, Vice President of OnField Marketing at Reebok, Director of Strategic Planning at Elan Corp.; B.Sc Economics, BYU and MBA from Harvard
Matthew Romney (1971) - VP of Property Management at Excel Legacy Corp, Product Manager for Microsoft Corp.; Bachelor of Arts from BYU and MBA from Harvard
Joshua Romney (1975) - Owner of Romney Ventures (a real estate developer), Acquisition Analyst at Intercontinental Real Estate; Bachelor of Arts from BYU and MBA from Harvard. Josh served in a number of political positions in the past several years, most notably as an advisor to his father’s presidential campaign and Utah Governor’s Gary Herbert gubernatorial campaign.
Dr. Benjamin Romney (1978) - Practices Internal Medicine in Boston; Degree in Management from BYU and a medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine.
Craig Romney (1981) - Advertising Music Producer at McGarry Bowen; Bachelor Degree in Communication, Brigham Young University (BYU)
Rosenberg argues that belief in free will and purpose and all that (see above) is belief in hokum of the same order as belief in God. The atheists’ self-image as the hero nihilist choosing her fate is condemned as being just as hopeless as the religious self image.
Everybody "believes in something," even if it is only Self. Self is a false idol. Question is whether the "something" is worthy of devotion.
I'll offer to teach Tea Party 101 for free. After all, it was a much bigger deal, with clean, non-sociopathic and polite people, involved tons more people with no arrests, and had real impact. Guess the Academic Left doesn't care for those sots of things.
We made it to the final night of the Ailey's NYC season at City Center last night. Mrs. BD commented that Ailey is now the only modern dance company that can fill a large venue in NYC for three weeks straight. Yes, they did Ailey's Revelations, along with some Paul Taylor and a very cool piece by Ohad Naharin. A jolly, sold-out, and enthused crowd.
We tried the pre-theater supper at the famous olde Russian Tea Room for nostalgia's sake. Good vodka, same olde atmosphere, the Russian food not great (certainly not as good as when Jackie O hung out there) but the Vodka selection was excellent - around 40 varieties. The lad and I had the Russian Standard (their vodka shots come ice-cold in little flute glasses). OK, I know - the place has become a little tourist trap for Euro-trash celeb-seeking visitors, but it's still kinda fun and they do have a good caviar selection on their regular menu (We think Petrossian a great place for mid-town caviar etc., but Maggie's Farm is not Zagat's):
Fix Me Jesus, from Revelations. What Christian has never prayed for that? The pupette and her pals loved it all. So did I. It was my second time.
Imagine what a horror 2011 was for progressives as Americans began to comprehend their stunning abundance of fossil fuels — beyond their two centuries’ supply of coal. Progressives responded with attempts to impede development of the vast proven reserves of natural gas and oil here and in Canada. They bent the willowy Obama to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from Canadian tar sands; they raised environmental objections to new techniques for extracting gas and “tight” oil from shale formations.
The way to revive sustainable growth is with more government aid to help create jobs, support demand and prevent foreclosures. As things stand now, however, Washington will provide less help, not more, in 2012. Republican lawmakers refuse to acknowledge that government cutbacks at a time of economic weakness will only make the economy weaker. And too many Democrats, who should know better, have for too long been reluctant to challenge them.
AA Daily Reflections online. You do not need to be an alcoholic to benefit from them because we all have grievous flaws and faults and, if we aspire to be more worthy people, we can use anything that helps.
The notion of the 12 steps came from the evangelical Oxford Group movement of the 1930s, whose first "step" was "We admitted that we were powerless over sin." (The author of the linked piece seems to view AA as a dangerous cult.)
To be spiritually reborn, the Oxford Group advocated four practices:
1. The sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian life given to God. 2. Surrender our life past, present and future, into God's keeping and direction. 3. Restitution to all whom we have wronged directly or indirectly. 4. Listening for God's guidance, and carrying it out.
Good stuff. Reborn is good. Otherwise, it's just all about me - and I ain't all that great.
Here Bill Wilson discusses the construction of the 12 Steps. I am no expert on AA (and am happy to be corrected on any misunderstandings), but my impression is that Bill Wilson did believe that only God could rescue him - and many others - from their personality flaws (in Wilson's case, possibly some sociopathic and narcissistic tendencies) and addictions (in Wilson's case, alcohol).
Doctors do not have the power to cure addictions, and no Psychiatrist would claim it (if they are, indeed, "curable"). It seems to me that only things like AA have the power to combat them - and to help people grow to higher levels of sanity, maturity, and realism - possibly higher levels than those who never had deal with these things. As my pastor says, only God can do it, but that could be said of all healing.
Feel free to tell us about any AA experiences you might have had.
Therefore do not worry, saying "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For after all these things the Gentiles seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need all of these things. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
The visually stunning, dreamlike new production at the Met last night knocked our socks off. The lacy ninjas running around and the traditional Japanese puppetry were, I felt, very cool. I don't get to opera too often these days - maybe twice or three times a year. It's always fun for me to realize that Butterfly was the pop, commercial music of 1904 despite being a sort of soul music with nary a hummable tune. Wagnerian touches, but lyrical and conversational, lush and still subtle. Butterfly was like avant-garde rock, or maybe the REM of the time.
'Twas my Christmas treat for some of my kids (Yes, K - you are one of mine now). One more Big Apple Treat tomorrow for the lucky bambinos before regular life resumes.
I suppose we are Puccini fans, but who isn't? Genius, with a musical complexity beyond my comprehension but fully within the ability to touch me. We visited his house in old Lucca, and his home church where he learned keyboard, two years ago but it feels like yesterday. Carpe diem...
This is not the diva we saw last night. We had the charming Canadian Liping Zhang, not Patricia Racette. It's a tough role, on stage non-stop and singing for three hours. Willing suspension of disbelief - Racette does not look 15 years old but it is Butterfly's youth and innocence which explains the tragic story. Nowadays, it might be considered a story about pedophilia and a dirty old man, but 15 used to be considered marriageable and still is, most places on the planet. Maybe a good idea...
Mrs. BD comments "Can you imagine Leontyne Price playing Butterfly?" No, and yes. (She did.) I always study an opera in advance, and then listen more afterwards. Listened to this bit at least 10 times today, between cleaning-up-Christmas tasks - takes me a long time to get a piece of music because, much as I love it and as much as it can reach my soul, I am musically-retarded (it's a Learning Disability! Where's my free money and goodies for that Disability?)
Can you hear the "waves of grain" with the American naval officer horny rascal Pinkerton, here?:
A few pics below the fold - but not of the production itself. I would not violate their rule because I love what they do for those of us who save our pennies for such wonderful experiences, and pass them on to the next generation as precious gifts.
The college pupette has been exploring the Viet Nam hinterlands, and spent a couple of days in a northern fishing village with Vietnamese friends. The young people in the villages had never seen Americans. The pupette, enjoying all of the spicey local dishes of course, managed to pick up a nice strong case of food poisoning and emailed me a medically-detailed report of that. TMI. 
Orthorexia - 
Seriously, If You Pick The Wrong Major 
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