Maggie's Farm

Revelation 21:1-6a

21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

21:2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

21:4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

21:5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

21:6a Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry. Dylan's great song performed by Jerry Garcia, 1985:

Dede Scozzafava releases her voters! She is essentially dropping out.

This should give Hoffman an edge since she is, nominally, a Repub and (was) the pick of the County Repub Chair.

Our blog pal Right Wing Prof just got bad medical news. I don't even know his real name, but God does.

He emailed me the serious details, but I won't post them. Please include him in a prayer today.

Send him a few bucks today, if you like him. Every little bit helps, and it looks to be tight. Plus the race has become nationalized: The O did a fund-raiser in NYC for the Dem in the race, and the RNC finally took down their ads against Hoffman.

We would like to see this modest, non-pol, Reagan-Conservative Republican guy elected.

From Sexy Witch:

The Englishman has, as have many of our friends.

Tell us what hunting you have done this fall (not including pen-raised birds or half-trained farm Mallards - that isn't hunting - that is shooting. Not that there is anything wrong with it.)

Halloween witch above courtesy of Theo

High-end home stagers.

The sad strange life of Bobby Fischer

"Sustainability" Wars on campus.

A new housing bubble? Your government is working on it.

The guy who filmed the world's last hunter-gatherers

Story begins like this:

Last week it was announced that George Soros (the man who helped bring us Obama) had pledged $1.1 billion to fund “Climate Change initiatives”.

“Soros will establish the Climate Policy Initiative, an organization that will work with the US, China, India, Brazil and Europe and ensure that public interests are represented as new issues that affect climate change are established. According to Thomas Holler, who will lead the initiative, “It will be part advisory service, part policy developer and part watchdog.”

What a coincidence !!

That will tie in nicely with this: Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty, Claims British Lord (see video and red text below) – in December President Obama will fly off to Copenhagen again, this time to put his signature onto a document which effectively establishes a New World Government, based on “Climate Change” – formerly known as “global warming”.

Imus was never too impressed, but now he is getting a bit rough on Obama:

Because the President is a whiny little titty baby and a girly man and doesn't have enough guts to figure out what to do in Afghanistan, he's going to take on, what — Fox News and get his ass kicked there?

It's fun to check in with HawkCount and to explore their site to see what people are seeing during our wonderful raptor migration season.

Image is one of my favorites: The rugged, late-migrating Rough-Legged Hawk.

Where are you tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat) 1978. The remarkable lyrics are on the video.

h/t, Ace.

The road out to our village in the Berkshires. It is indeed over the river and through the woods. Woods, fields, and swamps:

View from the upper barn. Trout stream down there in the valley. Those are our woods up on the hills too - insofar as anybody can "own" woods. The hawks, owls, deer and and bears own them, really. Well, God owns them, but I can harvest firewood there. You can see the White Pine infestation in the upper meadow. We have been at 'em, but it's a lot of work to cut them down. It's a shame that you cannot really burn White Pine in the fireplace. Too much resin, burns too hot.

We owe it to King Camp Gillette for making it easy to be a well-groomed gentleman without cutting your head off, or having to visit the barber.

He was a clever tinkerer and, apparently, an equally good marketer of his "safety razor."

Since his invention, razors have seen many modifications to Gillette's basic idea - not to mention electric razors (do any guys use those anymore?).

When the Gillette products got too expensive for my taste, and I couldn't keep track of each new type of razor and the costly blades that went with them, I opted for buying cheap disposable razors in bulk. The one pictured is $10.49 for 100.

Depending on your testosterone level, one is good for a week - at least. Longer if you can put up with minor discomfort.

Added benefit: No problem if a daughter borrows your razor. Who cares?

Here's a good bio of Thurber from an opthalmologist who was interested in Thurber - and his vision problems. (Thurber's brother shot him in the eye with an arrow when they were playing William Tell games.)

Dorothy Parker or some equivalent wit commented that Thurber's drawings looked like unbaked cookie dough.

Hoping I can get some functional links to some more Thurber toons. Everybody's seen this one:

1969:

Here's one of my favorites:

I know that leaf photos are corny as heck. So what? My Red Japanese Maple is colorful. I would never have planted one of these flamboyant things, but somebody else planted it there about 30 years ago, and I am not going to cut it down.

The other night I became distracted by reading the series on radio soap operas which James Thurber wrote for The New Yorker in 1948. "Soapland" is in Thurber's The Beast in Me and Other Animals.

I envy Thurber's clarity, simplicity, and directness of writing, whether he is doing humor or regular reporting. Liked him better than EB White, with whom Thurber collaborated in writing the spoof on self-help books, Is Sex Necessary?, in 1929.

If you have never read Thurber, you are missing a real delight. Start with The Thurber Carnival. I could not find any of his toons on line, but I didn't spend much time searching.

Here's a good summary of the history of the radio soaps. Thurber's piece on the topic is a masterpiece of straightforward New Yorker-style reportage; the kind that can make any random topic fascinating because it is so well-written.