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.
Father's Day dinner last night with the in-laws at the Red Hat restaurant in the charming riverfront village of Irvington, NY (pop 6000). Was the town named after Washington Irving? Yes. Re-named after its distinguished resident. In fact, the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow is just north of there.
Now mainly a bedroom town, it once housed the Lord and Burnham Co. which built greenhouses and conservatories, including those of the NY Botanical Gardens. In fact, Red Hat is housed in the back of one of the old Lord and Burnham buildings. (Mrs. BD knows Irvington as the location of the home office and shop of Eileen Fisher.)
If you look south from the water's edge, you can see Manhattan 20 miles in the distance. My pic, looking north up the Hudson, has the Tappan Zee bridge. Gal in the foreground looks like Botticelli's niece - angelic, but with a sadness.
Mrs. BD cannot stop talking about this week's WAFA show in Boston. The exhibits blew her mind - and she knows about these things.
For flower art, the WAFA is the World Soccer competition. Competitive sculpture, really, but ephemeral. Four days, then it's all in dumpsters.
She said New Zealand, Pakistan, Japan, Russia, and South Africa were well-represented by designers. Even a highly-talented mother-daughter team from Zimbabwe.
Mrs. BD and her pals had nice chats with an exhibitor from Wales and one from Pakistan. They also chatted with a priest from Northern Ireland who is a famous designer, and a guy from Russia who won his division, who was there with his blond bombshell girlfriend.
I would post pics but Mrs. BD lost her iPhone right before she went. Some pics are here.
Today is the last day of the show, and it probably won't be scheduled back in the US for a decade or more. People come to the WAFA events from all over the world, and filled up Boston's hotels.
This world is full of so many interesting things to see and do that it is a wonder that anybody finds time to look at the internet.
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
"If you have a Dad who didn’t beat or molest you, didn’t embezzle money from you or your family, and kept his whoring enough on the down-low that he has never had to address it in a press conference, you better be getting that man a present.
Dads who manage to avoid all of the things mentioned in the previous paragraph are hard to find, and deserving of praise."
It's a sad and difficult thing to grow up without a father.
My rather good post about our visit to Norcia showed a road sign to Cascia. We did not visit Cascia, but friendly folks at our Abbazia hotel later informed us that St. Rita is the saint of hopeless causes.
I thought to myself, Hmmm. Maybe a saint for Maggie's Farm, if her soul is willing.
Now back to farm work, then we're going for special celeb dinner with my Dad-in-law. Tomorrow, lunch with my own Dad and the entire family, while in-laws go to celebrate their cousin's retirement after 27 years as a beloved parish priest in Pennsylvania.
This famous medieval Latin university drinking song, also known as On The Brevity of Life, is an example of Goliardic verse, of which Carmina Burana is the best known example.
The Latin and English words are below the fold - but there's a big gap first which I cannot fix.
Why people stand for a student drinking song is beyond me.
Norcia is the pork capital of Italy - pig, and the cinghiale which live in the surrounding hills and mountains. Sausages, salamis, proscuitto, and all other preserved meats. In the world of supermarkets, we forget how important tasty preserved meats were in the old days.
The food in Norcia is so famous that buses bring Romans up for the day for lunch and food shopping. From what I saw, they surely sleep on the way back to Roma because these Italians are serious about food, wine, - and food volume. Vocal volume, also. (As our Chinese waitress in Bavegna noted, Italians don't talk - they shout. Really, not always.)
Beside meat, they have a specialty in the incredible wild (and wildly expensive) local Black Truffle - tartufo negro, the "diamond of the kitchen" - and Pecorino cheese too - one of the best hard cheeses in the world, made from sheep milk.
Americans tend not to enjoy eating the wild boar very much, but in Italy they do wonders with it. We need to learn from the Italians, since we have such a problem with them. (However, it is illegal to market wild game in the US.)
I enjoyed visiting this village in the mountains, in the Valnerina, very much. It's not a tourist town, it's more like a market town but some savvy tourists stop by to get the local flavor - and to eat some fine flavors.
The real reason we went there was because of Mrs. BD's link to the monks of Norcia, but there turned out to be many reasons to go there.
Italian courtship on church steps. After seeing this pic, Mrs. BD (half Italian) wondered what these gals would turn into over time, after they get the stereotypically easily-led Italian guys off the church steps and up to the altar.
Shops show off their photos of their cinghiale hunters, on the walls. Head shots, in both senses of the term:
More fun Norcia pics and comments below the fold -
Mrs. BD reminds you, if near Boston, to visit the spectacular WAFA Flower Show this week. Over 600 flower creations from people all over the world, with probably 30,000 visitors also from all over the world. First time this has been held in the US.
Why 70% Tax Rates Won't Work - Memo to Robert Reich: The income tax brought in less revenue when the highest rate was 70% to 91% than it did when the highest rate was 28%.
Norcia is the birthplace of St. Benedict, born 480. I'll post some of my pics of the town of Norcia, the pork capital of Italy, later. First just a plug for the Monks of Norcia, who Mrs. BD supports.
This group of young Benedictines, many of whom are Americans, were looking for a monastic home. The Vatican responded that the monastery attached to the Church of St. Benedict in Norcia was available. How could they not accept that offer?
They say of themselves:
We pray the full monastic Office as laid out in the Rule (my link). We observe the monastic fast and we have retained the patrimony of Gregorian chant. In addition, the Holy See has entrusted us with the special apostolate of celebrating the Eucharist in both forms (in utroque usu), that is, the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. We do all kinds of work (manual, clerical and intellectual) including some limited apostolic work. Monastic formation in Norcia focuses heavily on the interior life: conversion, self-knowledge, the rooting out of vices and the acquiring of virtues – all this to create the necessary conditions for contemplative prayer.
We are a young international community, eager to love and serve Our Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart.
We chatted with a couple of them, and Mrs. BD attended their Vespers service in the crypt of the church. I might have joined her, but I don't really get the Roman Catholic routine and feel more like a lurker or a sight-seer instead of a participant when I, as a Protestant, attend, so I don't always feel that it's right.
Coburn's bill would have been just a modest first step. As he has put it, ethanol enjoys "a triple crown of government intervention: its use is mandated by law, it is protected by tariffs, and companies are paid by the federal government to use it."
Two themes predominate: a cluelessness about how things work outside the Ivy League–Chicago–D.C. political nexus, and a sense that nothing is ever Barack Obama’s fault. In that regard, he has two legitimate mea culpas: One, Obama has never run a business, spent any considerable time off the public payroll or outside of politics, or spent any time with those who were once characterized as “clingers,” and thus cannot be expected to know much about how cars work, doctors are paid, illegal immigrants cross the border, or the basics of economics. Intelligence and achievement are instead measured solely in terms of what universities or the elite media decide. Second, at no point in his past soaring cursus honorum (Occidental, Columbia, HarvardLaw Review, Chicago Law School, Chicago politics and organizing, the U.S. Senate) did anyone hold him to account, as in saying, “First, let us see exactly what you achieved that might justify yet another honor or promotion” — as in a stellar GPA, high LSAT score, brilliant law-review essay, a seminal tenure-winning book on the law, an award-winning law course, a landmark new community-organizing program, or a hallmark piece of senatorial legislation.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Obama (a) continues to say some rather strange things that seem naive and out of touch with the lives of average Americans to the point of absurdity, and (b) seems miffed that anyone might for the first time in his life dare to scrutinize his record, and collate what he said in 2008 and early 2009 with the reality of what has actually transpired by mid-2011.
Afternoon in Bevagna - a regular town sort of like Rumford, Maine. Love the way the bars put their picnic tables on the street to annoy the drivers. Neighborhood social life is on the streets, which I think is a wonderful thing.
If you are a stranger in a non-tourist town, they watch you a little to make sure you aren't up to no good. It's their town, and they feel protective.
"I'm working as hard as I can to get my life and my cash to run out at the same time. If I can just die after lunch Tuesday, everything will be perfect." - Doug Sanders, professional golfer
"All the fat guys watch me and say to their wives 'See, there's a fat guy doing okay. Bring me another beer.'" -- Mickey Lolich, Detroit Tigers pitcher
"Last year we couldn't win at home and we were losing on the road. My failure as a coach was that I couldn't think of anyplace else to play." -- Harry Neale, professional hockey coach
"When it's third and ten, you can take the milk drinkers; I'll take the whiskey drinkers every time." -- Max McGee, Green Bay Packers receiver
"I found out that it's not good to talk about my troubles. Eighty percent of the people who hear them don't care and the other twenty percent are glad you're having trouble." -- Tommy LaSorda, LA Dodgers manager
"My knees look like they lost a knife fight with a midget." -- E. J. Holub, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker regarding his 12 knee operations
"My theory is that if you buy an ice-cream cone and make it hit your mouth, you can learn to play. If you stick it on your forehead, your chances aren't as good." -- Vic Braden, tennis instructor
"Blind people come to the ballpark just to listen to him pitch." -- Reggie Jackson commenting on Tom Seaver
"When they operated, I told them to put in a Koufax fastball. They did - but it was Mrs. Koufax's." -- Tommy John NY Yankees recalling his 1974 arm surgery
"I don't know. I only played there for nine years." -- Walt Garrison, Dallas Cowboys fullback when asked if Tom Landry ever smiles
"We were tipping off our plays. Whenever we broke from the huddle, three backs were laughing and one was pale as a ghost." -- John Breen, Houston Oilers
"The film looks suspiciously like the game itself." -- Bum Phillips, New Orleans Saints after viewing a lop-sided loss to the Atlanta Falcons
"When I'm on the road, my greatest ambition is to get a standing boo." -- Al Hrabosky, major league relief pitcher
"The only difference between me and General Custer is that I have to watch the films on Sunday." -- Rick Venturi, Northwestern football coach
"I have discovered, in twenty years of moving around the ball park, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats." -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox owner
"Because if it didn't work out, I didn't want to blow the whole day." -- Paul Horning, Green Bay Packers running back on why his marriage ceremony was before noon.
"I have a lifetime contract. That means I can't be fired during the third quarter if we're ahead and moving the ball." -- Lou Holtz, Arkansas football coach
"I won't know until my barber tells me on Monday." -- Knute Rockne, when asked why Notre Dame had lost a game
"I tell him 'Attaway to hit, George.'" -- Jim Frey, KC Royals manager when asked what advice he gives George Brett on hitting
"I learned a long time ago that "minor surgery" is when they do the operation on someone else, not you." -- Bill Walton, Portland Trial Blazers
"Our biggest concern this season will be diaper rash." -- George MacIntyre, Vanderbilt football coach surveying the team roster that included 26 freshmen and 25 sophomores.
Mrs. BD cannot stop talking about this week's
My 
Mrs. BD reminds you, if near Boston, to visit the spectacular 
I like those Eyewitness Travel Guides as a quick survey of what there is to do and see when you go somewhere. 
