Wednesday, December 5. 2007
 (Lord’s day). Lay long in bed, and then up and to my office, there to dispatch a business in order to the getting something out of the Tangier business, wherein I have an opportunity to get myself paid upon the score of freight. I hope a good sum. At noon home to dinner, and then in the afternoon to church. So home, and by and by comes Mr. Hill and Andrews, and sung together long and with great content. Then to supper and broke up. Pretty discourse, very pleasant and ingenious, and so to my office a little, and then home (after prayers) to bed. This day I hear the Duke of Yorke is come to towne, though expected last night, as I observed, but by what hindrance stopped I can’t tell.
We follow Samuel Pepy's Diary regularly. It is delicious. He would have been a star blogger, like Tom Paine.
Where is Willow Creek, and where are we? Here.
We did not give our Grand Blog Photo Prize to Dr. X for no reason: 
 I haven't seen an Orange Julius shop in many years, but they are still in business. There used to be one on the corner of 110th St. and Broadway. You could get a hot dog and a delicious Orange Julius with its mysterious ingredients including fresh-squeezed OJ.
Maybe they were the original juice bar. The company is now owned by Dairy Queen, another maker of tasty treats - and you all know who owns Dairy Queen - Berkshire Hathaway of course. Warren Buffet is no dummy.
34 days out (4736 miles) - Lat 1.40" S Long 29.50 W June 5th We are enjoying the lovely climate of the S.E. Trades. The atmosphere is perfectly fine and the air cool and bracing. The sky is of a most lovely blue and at Sunset the clouds assumed colors which I have never seen but in these latitudes. "Parting day / Dies like the Dolphin, whom each pang imbues / With a new color as it gasps away / The last still loveliest till - 'tis gone - and all is grey."
We educated people better in 1843 in one-room schoolhouses with wood stoves than we do now. Read the (literate) whole thing.
Leftoid authoritarians think they are smarter and kinder than me, which entitles them to tell me how to do my life. Obviously, they have never met me. The Barrister of Maggie's Farm, in a recent conversation
Tuesday, December 4. 2007
 Adios to our blog pal Oxford Medievalist
More on killer robots. As the guys in Programmed Trading say, "It's our machine against their machine." Hitchens on An Anglosphere Future. That's my vision too. Lots about Conan Doyle. The Second Annual Worst Quotes from Daily Kos. Good grief. Abortions are associated with breast cancer. Time for the Baby Boomers to apologize to America. I do, right now. Hugo's next move: Kill the Media. "Elite" college admissions: Prof Deneen speaks Major Dem fundraiser Hsu indicted by Feds. A sad story of a motor-voter. Jim Miller Since when is being a hot babe a crime? When I was young, these sorts of wonderful gals were all over the place. Good wholesome fun. Bill jumps in when Hillary is in trouble. That's their deal, but it doesn't make her look good. And speaking of the Clintons, from Lewis at American Thinker: Falling in love with politicians is something of a liberal habit from JFK to Bill Clinton. If you're liberal, you don't vote for a politician but a Savior. It is not how conservatives think, but the enraptured Left keeps doing it. It's kind of like picking a puppy in the window. Somehow Hillary no longer inspires that unfeigned devotion -- or at least, now there is competition to be the love object of the liberal masses.
From a piece by Romano in Newsweek. Hillary's Idea of Fun: At a news conference Sunday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a reporter asked Clinton if Barack Obama has a "character problem." Her response, as reported by Pat Healy of the New York Times? "It’s beginning to look a lot like that," she said. "I have said for months that I would much rather be attacking Republicans and attacking problems of our country because ultimately that’s what I want to do as president. But I have been for months on the receiving end of rather consistent attacks – well now the fun part starts.” According to Healy, she "punctuat[ed] the word 'fun.'"
She is a harridan.
This wonderful. It will make you hope you never arrive at your destination, in your car: The History of Ancient Rome. It was not all that long ago, and not much has changed in the world, except on the surface. Prof. Fagan is spellbinding.
 A Happy Hannukah to our Jewish readers. (FYI: How to spell Hannukah and other info re this holiday)
I don't know why he included the bit about tomato sauce, but his list of Thanksgiving myths is good. If abortion is murder, who should be punished - and how? Reisman I do not want to vote for people with charisma. Asst. Village Idiot Yale thinks they need more diversity programs. Sheesh. Educated fools? John Leo, via Insty Another reason American medical care is expensive: too many CAT scans. But why? Dr. Bob. The next time your Doc suggests a test, ask him or her whether it's a pure CYA for the malpractice lawyers, or truly necessary. They will tell you. You can refuse to do it. Time for a PC re-write of God Save the Queen. Of course. One must distort your precious and time-honored culture the immigrants want come to, to...please them? Wha? If they don't want to join the culture, why do they come? Just for the money? If so, and they don't want to get on board with the culture, then the hell with them. Offending people is bad manners, but Free Speech. Betsy. Offend at will, if you wish. So much for Iraq as a big campaign issue. We told ya so, last winter. Nobody was asleep at the switch in the White House.  How the Brit Nanny State thinks (and lies) to their "children" adult citizens, from Devil's Advocate:
I have come to the conclusion that the only way to get through modern life is to assume that everything we are told by any public body is either wrong or a lie. Take the ‘safe drinking’ recommendations that have been in place for many years – 21 units a week for men, 14 for women – but are now deemed to be too high.
Writing in the Daily Mail this week, Michael Hanlon describes how he interviewed an eminent cardiologist who had been involved with drawing up the alcohol guidelines: “He said ‘Well, most of us thought that for most men, say, a bottle of wine a day wouldn't do any harm. But that seemed excessive, so we cut it down to 40 units a week. That meant we were saying that it was OK for men to drink two or three pints a night. Medically, that may have been so, but that would be sending out the wrong message in terms of drinking and driving. So we halved it.’”
So there you go. Completely arbitrary and based more on what the Powers That Be think the public might accept rather than on any medical reasoning. And these are the old figures, not the ones blamed this week for an alleged epidemic of liver disease as the Nanny State - as I always said it would - redeploys its Smoke Police against the demon drink.
Cheers. Mine’s a double.
Sunday, December 2. 2007
 Prepare ye the way for the Lord! Advent is back. It always seems to come at exactly the right time, when I need it most.
For me, Advent is the Joy Time, and Lent is the Serious Time. (Easter is its own thing entirely, usually culminating in an excessive brunch with wine after church, followed by a decadent nap due to an infusion of carbs rather than an infusion of the Holy Spirit). Many of us at Maggie's Farm measure the beat of our inner lives more by the church cycle than anything else. Hunting season is great, fireplace-and-book season is fine, boating season is great, trout season is wonderful, but Advent, like Lent, takes me out of The Circle Game and into another world. (However, we are not so pure and holy here that we do not dig Santa and gifts and all that. We love Santa, and utterly believe in him. We dig pagan Christmas trees, too.) Advent, as I experience it, is an annual month-long pregnancy: a chance to deliberately contain and nurture the growth of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ, in our hearts. That's the miraculous and mysterious possibility, and every year it is different because we are different and our faith and knowledge are different. Advent is holy, but Christmas is just for fun. When I was a kid, our Congregational Church had Christmas morning service. That was a good way to begin the day: celebrating a birth is a wonderful thing in itself, but celebrating a holy birth on a frigid snowy morning, with the scent of pine everywhere, and cheery people in overcoats shouting Merry Christmas! across the lawn or parking lot is exhilarating. My church does the usual Christmas Eve candlelight service, which is perfect, which always brings tears, and which I hate to leave, but I could use a Christmas morning service too before the eggnog, feast, and festivities. Preachers tell me that nobody will show up on Christmas morning anymore. Photo: Out my window today. Black niger seed on the left, seed mix with cracked corn on the right. The tray is not only for the ground birds like the Juncos and doves - it's also to prevent too much seed from falling on the ground and attracting rats. If you have a rat problem, feel free to steal my design. The tray is a Home Depot window screen stuck into a wood frame I cobbled together.
 Isaiah 5: 1-5
1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 In the last days
the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore. 5 Come, O house of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Saturday, December 1. 2007
Stopped by the local Christmas Tree farm today after our hunt. They were doing a brisk business. Brisk weather too - about 29 degrees. 
Santa smokes, owns elf slaves, utters the forbidden word "ho," likes to nip at the brandy, and likes to sit children on his lap - which means he is a sicko pedophile. Jules notes that his waistline is one more strike against him.
 Just finished reading Marianne Wiggins' The Shadow Catcher, about which the San Francisco Chronicle said:
The Shadow Catcher tells two different stories set in two different times. The first is about famed Western photographer Edward S. Curtis. It's told by his wife, who finally divorced him after bearing his children and suffering his neglect. He preferred the open skies of the outdoors to family life. The second story is told by a writer named Marianne Wiggins, who is writing a novel about Curtis. She's also investigating the man who stole her father's identity, a man who committed suicide years earlier. As the writer digs deeper into both stories, she finds that they intersect. The Shadow Catcher has received mixed reviews with the San Francisco Chronicle saying, "Wiggins' net effect is vertiginously enjoyable, a rambunctious puzzle-box that rewards dives into murky interpretive waters: The more effort you devote to thinking the book through, the greater its rewards."
I am not advising you to read the book. However, it did spark my interest in the famous turn-of-the-century photographer Edward S. Curtis, best known for his photos of the West and especially his Indian portraits. (He also was the photographer for Alice Roosevelt's wedding.) . You can read about Curtis here. One interesting but unsurprising aspect of his excellent Indian photos is that they were taken well after the days of the "wild Indians." These were reservation Indians who he asked to dress up in the old style and to pose for the photos. The photo of the old Crow Warrior, above, was taken in 1908. Samples of his photos at Curtis' Wiki entry above, and more here, whence we borrowed the image.
Do you sometimes wonder what God wants to say to you? It's easy: He's got a book out. An Episcopalian priest pal, in a recent talk
Friday, November 30. 2007
Today, new big flat monitor, new potent Dell box/server, new everything -perfect for a blog editor and busy human being (but one who is a bred-in-the-bone Yankee and hates to spend money). Thanks to the Mrs. Bird Dog and to Larry The Local Tech Genius for the delightful surprise. I did not know what "fast" meant until this afternoon. Backed up automatically too, on the accessory hard drive, which has been a major headache in the past for some of my projects. Happy Bird Dog.
 The New Yorker wonders, in a book review, whether it's cool to be a carnivore now.
Who cares whether it's cool? Only The New Yorker, and they should be above such superficial nonsense. But, I agree with one thing - who can remember all of the cuts of a cow, and where they come from? I can remember the cuts of a White-Tailed Deer, however, having butchered my share. Excellent cartoon from the article.
Thursday, November 29. 2007
A re-post from 2005. The Red-Tail migration is in full force right now, and I am seeing them everywhere. I had one perched above my porch a week ago, eyes fixed on my bird feeder waiting for a squirrel.  The Red Tailed Hawk is the most commonly-seen hawk in the US and Canada, especially in winter when he likes to hang out along highways and in suburbs, on the look-out for rodents. His white chest is usually more noticeable than his rusty-red tail which is only seen from the back, or when he turns in flight and the sun catches it.
He is a "buteo" - the large, plump, soaring family of hawks with rounded wings (called buzzards in Europe). The Red Tail is a versatile creature, able to make a home even in NYC's Central Park, where "Pale Male" has been raising families for several years on rats and pigeons. This hawk's call is a distinctive "Keeeeeeer" which sends a chill down the spine of all little warm fuzzy critters. He'll take a pheasant from a shooting field, but his hamburgers are rodents - rats, rabbits, squirrels and mice. He will grab a foolish pigeon if he can. He is migratory, with population shifts south during winter, such that our New England winter birds are likely Canada breeders. Learn more about the mighty Red Tail: Click here: All About Birds
What's under the surface of the sea, or outside in the dark, or beyond the light of the campfire, or in the deep woods beyond the lawn and the woodpile? The human imagination populates the unseen with its inner visions - unless it knows from experience what is really there. A few nights under the stars, for example, will rid one of all fears of what's beyond the woodpile at night - unless you live in Grizzly country. Sippican takes a look at city folk in the country: Not Even a Concierge Can Save You Now.
I cannot fulfill my usual editorial duties today because I will be busy getting ready for our annual conservation charity event tonight for Ducks Unlimited. Eleven million acres under protection for wildlife habitat, with no government money - that's a darn good cause. We will pre-post some useful new stuff today, and stuff from the archives. No dead air! Image: David Maas "Wood Ducks", over a DU Reclamation Project sign
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