Maggie's Farm

The Dems are the fast road to Socialism and the Republicans are the slow road to Socialism.

Many people say this, but heard most recently from my son and one of my daughters (the Ron Paul one at Kenyon - not the McCain one in NYC). We observed during our drives yesterday, with irony, that the only reason China has been able to slowly, step-wise get rid of Socialism is by having an authoritarian, police-state government. Places like France, England, and Germany will never be able to do that, with so many people sucking on the government teats. They are screwed economically, spiritually, and humanly. Their people with verve and ambition still come to America...for now.

Check out the stuff we posted over the weekend. Some fun stuff, I think.

Did a bit of driving around this weekend. Took some lousy photos. We did drive past a doctor's office in Norfolk, CT: Dr. Ralph Emerson. We all agreed we'd be glad to go to him. (In some areas the leaves were wonderful, and in some spots not so good, but we were not looking for leaves.) This is Canaan, CT:

 The Housatonic Valley, Route 7 in Western MA:

 More random road photos below the fold:

The pup who works in NYC is studying for her GMAT. It sounds like a rightly demanding and discriminating exam.

She says the grammar correction sections are extremely subtle aspects of complex sentences, and that the two-part interactive math problems only give you two minutes each if you want to finish them. If you get one right, the computer gives you a more challenging one. It ramps up fast, she says, to try to find your limits. That's a great idea, like an automated oral exam where they can push each line of questioning until you are totally stumped and crushed with humility. The two-part math questions involve something like Which of the following additional pieces of information do you need to solve this problem? A,B, Both, Neither.

Brain swirls. These sorts of logical challenges quickly separate the men from the boys.

There are two essays also. Sounds like good fun to me, but I like exams. No. I love exams, whether offered by schools, institutions or, most importantly, by real life every darn day.

The pup does too: she is busy re-memorizing her exponent and square root tables to save time on the exam. She has great fun doing it, and says "It will never hurt you in life to have 9 to the 5th on the tip of your tongue." She began with 1-12 to the third and is working her way up.

No calculators allowed for this exam. Good on them for that.

Lena Horne, 1969. Damn, this is good:

I am in the middle of Conroy's new book, South of Broad, which is set in Charleston.

Being a Yankee, I had no idea what Benne Wafers were. Here's the recipe.

It's nice to know that there are still places in America where ladies routinely have teatime with homemade tea cookies. It is civilized and civilizing, like so many old Southern habits.

Regarding other low-country foods, She-Crab Soup is fine and dandy, but this summer I discovered how much I enjoy Shrimp 'n Grits (and I don't even love shrimp. I like it with the smaller shrimp).

This is my idea of a fine dressing for Mr. Turkey: Foie gras, apple and chestnut.

I have baked some quail with foie gras stuffing (damn good), but never turkey. Time to do it.

I may do a side of oyster stuffing and a side of the foie gras stuffing, but fill the bird itself with the expected chestnut, sausage and cornbread stuffing. Or maybe not.

Anyhow, I have to cook two, so I'll do one on the grill, unstuffed of course.

As a counterpoint to yesterday's Country-Pop You Belong With Me, here's Dylan's wonderful version of You Belong To Me, with some repetitive video of Bob with Sarah, his first wife, in what appears to be their bedroom in NYC - it doesn't look like their Woodstock, NY house.

Seeing all the Amish in Ohio last week got me to thinking about Rumspringa.

It seems to me that this is nothing unique about the Amish. A fair number of adolescent kids in any culture spend some time taking a vacation from their parents' values and way of life. Fortunately, most return to sanity sooner or later if they don't lose themselves or destroy themselves in the process.

Just found out Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour has finished its 100-piece series.

It can be found on line, though, and in reruns on Sirius. It's enjoyable, with a great selection of old tunes.

Viking wonders whether country music is the new rock and roll. I stole this Youtube from him because it's touching as hell. Taylor Swift:

Update on the invasion of the Asian Longhorned Beetle. Please do not term me racist or anti-immigrant for posting this.

Phoenicians in New Hampshire? No doubt. I think I saw one there this summer, rowing a galley full of purple elephants across Squam Lake.

The retired (I think) pastor Dr. Andrew Jackson has announced his Experience Turkey travel biz. Readers know how much I love that country. His email announcement says, in part,

As many of you know God has given me a deep love for the biblical land of Turkey. Once the home of Abraham, Noah, and the Apostles Paul, John, Peter and many more.

After traveling and ministering in Turkey and leading tours for almost 20 years now - as well as writing two books on prayer journey itineraries through Turkey - I have decided it is time for me to go public as a Turkey tour/trip consultant.

I already assist many people (Christian and non-Christian) around the world with their tours/trips to Turkey, so I thought I would make it official, and offer my expertise and first-hand experience.

You can find the details of my Turkey tour consulting group at my new website www.ExperienceTurkeyTours.com. 

In Health Care, Nobody Knows Anything. Two new industry studies reignite the debate about what makes health care so expensive.

However, Betsy is spot-on:

The Pelosi Democrats aren't going to give up on trying to leverage in some sort of public option. Their logic is that once they get a program in place, they can start piling on additional mandates and increase the size of the program just as has been done with other government health programs over the years. That is why they're so adamant to get a public option approved. They figure they can hammer out the expansion later. And the result will be to drive private insurers out of the market and throw more and more people into a government-provided insurance plan. That's why they're so excited about describing their plan as "Medicare for Everyone." They just are ignoring the fact that the reimbursement schedule for Medicare won't cover all a doctor or hospital's costs. Someone has to pay the difference. And if we start forcing people out of the private market into the government program, there won't be anyone left to pay the difference. And so the only solution will be to provide less health care. The trajectory of improvements in health care that we've seen in our lifetimes will start flattening out and maybe even trending down. That's the real curve that the Democrats are bending - not the cost curve.

The dirty-minded MSM: Powerline

The O holding up Aghan decision until after the Nov elections. Probably until after health care votes too. What a jerk to operate that way. It's not manly.

It's about jobs. Yes it is, partly. But there are only 2 things government can do to help business growth: easy money and cutting taxes. As the guys says:

The One is far too busy trying to ruin healthcare and jack everyone’s electricy and heating bills to the moon to worry about job creation. 

Why the Pay Czar is way off base.

Ditto, Ramesh: I'm against hate crimes; and against hate-crimes laws, too.

$15 million/year dingbat lectures Wall St on salaries

Where did all the Obama Youth go? Yes, probably looking for jobs.

To get a taste of central Ohio, we stayed at the very pleasant Honey Run Inn outside Millersburg in Holmes County, the heart of Ohio Amish country where every other name seems to be Yoder. Excellent dinner menu there, but pricey. 

If you don't get lost, it's only a 45-minute beautiful country drive down to Gambier in Knox Co. Gotta watch out for your turns, though, on those nice two-lane county roads or you can end up far from your destination with no gas station anywhere.

When I visit a new area, I like to get a close-up feel for the woodlands and their outdoors, so I took a couple of early morning hikes up there in Holmes Co. I'd say the bird life and the tree life are similar that of southern New England, and the woodlands are similar hardwood forest - except that the density of nut and mast trees is remarkable: Walnut, Beech, various oaks, Hickory, Shagbark Hickory, Butternut, Ash. When you walk through the woods in late Oct. as I did, you hear the startling thunk of walnuts falling constantly. Also different - I saw no pines and no birch. Plenty of majestic Tulip Trees as one sees in southern New England, and Maples all over.

You cannot have familiarity with a woodland without knowing each tree, and I try to do so. Was mann weiss, mann sieht.

4000 years ago much of Ohio was short-grass prairie and full of Bison. A cooler, wetter climate since then has made possible the hillside woodlands of today (everything flat seems to be farmed) - plus there are no more Indians to burn the prairies to suppress woodland growth.

From the size of the trees, this patch of hilly woodland below was pasture 40 or 50 years ago. Why I did not see or hear lots of Wild Turkeys I do not know, but these woods definitely hold plenty of deer.

 A few more snaps from my hikes in the morning drizzle below the fold -

It's not too late. Or you can do it again. It's even worth it if your Congresscritter or  Senator is a far Lefty: it's important for these people to know what you think.

So take a minute today to email your Congressman and Senators to let them know your views of the Dem healthcare plan.

Their email and fax addresses are here. It helps to be calm, polite, reasonable, direct - and brief. A fax is probably better than an email.

If you oppose further government involvement in our medical care, you can also sign the Free Our Health Care Now petition. Over 1 million have signed it, I am told.

For me, it's an issue of how much I want my life controlled by Federal bureaucrats and politicians. I am with Jefferson: the less, the better. Let's take care of the poor, the unfortunate, and the feckless, and let the others make their free way in life as Americans are born and raised to do.

Keep the government's hands off my body!

All artists steal and borrow. Computer program proves Shakespeare didn't work alone, researchers claim.

"Proves"?

I like my kids to get out of the Northeast for at least some part of their education, and they all have done so. I am delighted to have a pup at Kenyon College. She loves it, and I am pleased and relieved about that because through secondary school she spent every free moment banging around NYC, going to theater, museums, concerts, street fairs, theater internships, pubs, etc. I had come to think of her as a city girl.

My overall impression of the Kenyon kids is clean-cut, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, cheerful, studious, not overly Maoist, and very engaged in all of the activities of the school. For one example, the pup tells me that she does not know one kid who is not involved in some musical activity, and that the intro Theater course is the most heavily subscribed, with four large sections.

Small liberal arts colleges in the countryside tend to feel like Prep Schools to me, and Kenyon does have that feeling. If a kid went to school in the relatively isolated countryside or to a place like Exeter, Andover, Hotchkiss, Choate or Deerfield, I don't think they would find Kenyon to be an exciting change of pace. (With around 1600 kids, Kenyon is half the size of the BD pup's high school.)

Kenyon was founded as an Episcopalian seminary and college by Dartmouth grad Philander Chase in 1824 when Ohio was pioneer country. It remains, technically anyway, an Episcopalian school.

Kenyon grad Paul Newman built them a wonderful new athletic center with pool, gyms and work-out rooms (which are shared with people in the town). He didn't need to build them a theater, because they already have three: a black box, a small theater, and a high tech large theater - plus a large music performance auditorium in Rosse Hall. That's enough for 1600 kids.

I took some snaps of the cozy campus, of course.

The pup's favorite classroom, in Ascension Hall:

Lots more snaps of the Kenyon campus below the fold - 

As a nod to huntin' season, our current image on top is from Currier and Ives' American Field Sports series. I do not see Snipe too often anymore, but I do not know why. Last time I saw them in any numbers was in a Manitoba marsh.

Why not? White House Targets Chamber of Commerce Over Opposition to Reform Plans.

They are looking to make enemies, and that is a poor strategy. I think it's like Nixon's Enemies List.

We posted on the sad story of the Ash Tree diseases recently, but I didn't have a good photo of a White Ash, the fine northern hardwood and pleasant shade tree from which the Louisville Slugger happens to be made.

I took a photo of one - a young one - on the Kenyon campus in its orange and yellow autumn splendor.

Plenty of Amish on the roads with their lively, quick-trotting rigs.

Lots more road snaps and scenic vistas below the fold, including cornfields by the mile (why no pheasants?) -