Maggie's Farm

She begins her post with this: "'The universe is made of stories, not atoms', poet Muriel Rukeyser famously remarked."

It's true enough to be a truism. We live by stories, in stories, telling stories.

Furthermore, atoms are stories too.

A simple ring supposedly owned by Jane Austen recently sold at auction for $236,000. Its value without the story? Probably a couple of hundred bucks. It's just as easy to think of stories which detract from value, eg the value of Jeffrey Dahmer's house.

Is it possible to quantify the story value, the sentimental value, of things? Sometimes, yes: Significant Objects: How Stories Confer Value Upon the Vacant

Pic of a storm cell in southern Connecticut, on Sunday, taken by our webmeister.

Inside a Hoarder's Brain: Why They Can't Ditch Their Stuff

Via Insty, 10 Things You Should Be Buying Used

Are casinos really the most responsible form of recreation we can offer our seniors?

Gallup Poll: Many Obama Voters Jumping Ship

Arthur Brooks: Obama and 'Earning Your Success' - The work mandate was the most successful welfare reform in 60 years. Ending it is a tragedy.

Great news: TSA to unionize

Liars, Damned Liars, and Harry Reid

Harry Reid Revelations, Both Fake-but-Accurate and Real

The High High Cost of Low Low Interest Rates

"Normally I don't give a rip about the "I know something you don't know about Obama" story, but this one is absolutely fascinating."

With costs rising fast, Massachusetts moves to dictate medical care.

Mead: Germany never asked for the euro in the first place.

"Government’s don’t produce wealth. The private sector does. Government spends that wealth."

Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. 

Naturally, attempted to eat my fill of Wellfleet Oysters, but I never will. Life is too short to complete that pleasure.

A number of Obama bumper stickers out there on the Cape (but MANY fewer than 4 years ago). Most of the Priuses there this year had no political stickers. Mrs. BD kept track of that. We used to think that Obama stickers were part of the Prius brand and paint job. The enthusiasm is gone. We tried to keep track of the Scott Brown bumper stickers. "Take America Back". They were easy to find, but I still think he has only a fighting chance. People ignore the details. Warren is a hard Lefty, and that's usually good enough for wealthy Massachusetts.

Will provide more fun pics later. This is at Pearl's (the old Capt'n Higgin's, upscaled with a hopping bar scene) on the dock. My apologies if you drool on your keyboard. Sweetest oysters in the world, thanks to the Herring River. Mrs. BD is addicted to the seared raw Bluefin with the chopped wasabi-bean crust. Dynamite food. I love that, but my soul needs the raw shellfish every summer. All I can find, plus some steamers too. And some mussels.

(Some readers wonder how your editor Bird Dog posts when on sabbatical from Maggie's. I pre-post and pre-date some items when away. I cheat. Got to keep the rhythm section - the basso continuo - rolling along. That's my well-paid job here. Happy that everybody pitches in and keeps the posts coming when they can. We're a hippy  hippie commune.)

What I want is six legal laborers (easily to be gotten around here at 7 am on a Saturday) for 8 hours, armed with my chain saws, my mighty brush-wacker, wood-chipper, a soil tiller, trimmers, garden tools, root poisons, grass seed, and a truckload of mulch.

In one hard day, with me and the lad working hard and happily alongside, I think we could restore the immediate surrounds of the Maggie's HQ to pristine elegance. I do all I can on my own, but some jobs are more than I can handle in the time I have. Lots of rocks and evil vines.

It's a bitch of a job, but many hands make light work and labor is satisfying especially with many hands on board.

Will provide excellent and abundant take-out Mexican lunch for all. Beer with limes after the job is done. Payment in cash, of course, as is customary. The rate here is $100/day, and these guys work hard.

In the fall, I will also  have some heavy-duty transplanting to be done but it's not the size of job that this one is.

Psalm 51:1-12

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

51:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

51:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

51:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

51:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

51:11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Lots of glacial kettle ponds out there. Very deep in the middle.

After recommending Gombrich's Meditations On a Hobby Horse and Other Essays On the Theory of Art a month or so ago, I have been re-reading it after 20 years.

It's the deepest and most thoughtful stuff I have ever read about image-making and our responses to them, so dense with ideas that I can really only digest a sentence or two at a time.

Over the transom:

More below the fold -

In a disused graveyard

The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
"The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay."
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.

Is the Mojito really the national cocktail of Cuba? This drink seems to be enjoying a craze recently. Sounds like a Mint Julep but with rum.

I have never tried one, but I steer clear of hard booze most of the time. I like anything with mint in it, though.

Here's how to make it.

Image via Eratosthenes

Mumbai lovers find haven as attitudes to dating change

Oxford University Degenerates Into Transsexual Farce

Very old tools (45,000 years old)

Why Toilets Are Still Made of Porcelain

Why the Amish Population Is Exploding

Shackleton and Scott's Antarctic huts are put online

Belarus generals sacked over Swedish teddy bear stunt

Oldie but goodie: New Wool Blanket Tears Commune Apart

Dispelling the misconceptions about feminism.

What Ever Happened to Jayson Blair?

Chicagoans hungry to flip the bird to Rahm, nicely

Beetle could delay Keystone pipeline

Enrollment Off in Big Districts, Forcing Layoffs

New Online Help Wanted Ads Plunge The Most Since January 2009

Meredith Whitney: Banking Industry to Shed Another 50,000 Jobs

What’s More Important, Monopoly Privileges for Union Bosses or Educational Opportunity for Minority Children?

Harry Reid offers still more evidence……that he’s a lowlife bottom feeder.

Jenkins: Is Obama Beating Himself? With "you didn't build that" going viral, the president's campaign is reportedly looking for a positive message. But what message?

Mitt Romney is right, culture matters

Oy Vey! Nancy Pelosi Wants to Protect Me from Being Exploited

Obama’s Campaign Most Cynical in Recent Memory

Santorum: Chick-fil-A a victim of ‘intolerance and bigotry’

Ann Romney slammed for $990 Shirt, Michelle Obama praised for $6,800 jacket

Steyn in Europe:

How many more millions will be on food stamps and disability by the end of the decade? According to the Heritage Foundation, in the United States government spending accounts for 42 percent of GDP, in Canada 44 percent. Those two points are apparently the difference between a sturdy republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens and a notorious semi-French socialist basket case of effete wimps. Oh, wait: New Zealand's about the same as America.

The Young Women's Republican Club of Milford, CT, 1941

Inspirational and entertaining TED talk - with juggling (h/t Cheating the Impossible: Wire-Walker Philippe Petit on Education, Creativity, and Patience)

Image via Vanderleun

Look! There's a shiny object  squirrel chicken sandwich!

Sippican's house (with Tom Waits)

Commutes, Tradeoffs and the Limits of Urban Growth

Burn Down the Suburbs? Not exactly, but Obama is already working to get rid of them.

Japanese robot update

Penn State Students Trying To Understand Why They're There Now

Rag Drag - How we became buried by clothes, and what to do about it

Gore Vidal, celebrated author, playwright, dies at 86

The King of All Media - Maine ‘independent’ Senate candidate Angus King Protected by Maine-Stream Media, Insiders Say

"Independent"?

Brit Hume: Obama’s “distress call” to Bill Clinton.

And, says Krauthammer: It’s a sign of weakness

NPR Host: Romney’s Poland Trip Is Racially Motivated

Obviously. It's a country with no African-Americans.

Reflections on “Chicago values” By Francis Cardinal George, OMI

Health Care in MA Is Bad Omen for Obamacare

Globull Warming, Class Warfare, Last On List Of American’s Concerns

Why ‘You Didn’t Build That’ Resonates

Anti-Semitic Statement: Nancy Pelosi Claims Jews Care Only About Money

Corn for Food, Not Fuel

Government Motors isn't working

Back out to Wellfleet, as usual. Not just for the world-famous Wellfleet Oysters.

"Milton Friedman, who would have turned 100 on Tuesday, helped to make free markets popular again in the 20th century. His ideas are even more important today":

 Well over 200 million were liberated from poverty thanks to the rediscovery of the free market. And now as the world teeters close to another recession, leaders need to urgently rediscover Friedman's ideas.

I remember asking Milton, a year or so before his death, during one of our semiannual dinners in downtown San Francisco: What can we do to make America more prosperous? "Three things," he replied instantly. "Promote free trade, school choice for all children, and cut government spending."

How much should we cut? "As much as possible."

A Libertarian at heart. The man believed in American freedom from the state and had faith in human potential - when unleashed. Listening to him talk, for me, is like seeing the sun come out from behind a cloud.

A 1704 farmhouse

A 1755 farmhouse next door, built on the same farm for a kid, I would imagine

And a 15-minute walk to the YMCA and the library. Plus a fairly dense neighborhood where kids can hop on their bike, or just walk down the street, and find tons of kids to hang out with and play ball with. How good is that?

The train would be the New Haven line (NYC to Boston). Fairfield is around an hour and 15 minutes by train to Grand Central Station. Not too bad, especially if you can get work done on the train. A little less time to New Haven. It's part of the "Gold Coast," but this neighborhood is more like Silver. Pricey for what little you get.

The lad and I took our annual journey to the great Pequot Library Book Sale in Southport, CT on Sunday afternoon, then spent a few minutes scouting out the Fairfield real estate (south of the Boston Post Road, near Long Island Sound), just for giggles - but thinking as investors.

With all of the amazing amenities, one might think these neighborhoods near the beaches would be charming as heck. They are not. They are mostly post-war, poorly-built and poorly-designed with lots of split-levels and other charmless ticky-tacky stuff, built on small lots on marsh fill and thus subject to flooding during big storms. But that's the price you pay to walk to the beach. Laws would not permit such wetlands construction today.

My lad says that post-war neighborhoods are rarely gentrified, or spruced-up, due to lack of charm and construction quality. Because of the local amenities and conveniences, the land here is worth about the same with house or without. It's mostly 1/4-acre lots, some less. That means the houses are what are termed "scrapers": the house adds no, or minimal, value to the lot. In fact, the cost of demolition detracts from the value. Those lots are valuable with or without a functional house - around $450-800,000, and well over a million post-scraping and rebuilding. As a result of the near-zero value of the building, many of them are not well-maintained or improved up to modern standards.

Only a few of them have been scraped and replaced by 3-story houses of indeterminate, ungainly style. (Due to setback requirements, you have to build up to 3 stories to get the square footage people want today.)

When people realize their houses are hopeless scrapers, they stop putting money into them and thus make the neighborhood - and themselves - look scruffy, dilapidated, or dysfunctional. Often, they are best off renting the darn thing. Here's an example of one below, a snout house I suppose, which has had nothing done since 1958 except paint. Landscaping, I think, by Home Depot. With a little effort in that department, it could look like a fairly good starter house or retirement shelter. An American flag over the entry, and some interesting landscaping, would add a lot to this basic dwelling without scraping it off.

(By the way, I hate those set-back zoning rules. Stupid. Houses could have friendly porches right off the street, and larger back yards for gardening, etc., without them. People making zoning rules are usually idiots. These are not exactly grand estates with gracious lawns full of grazing sheep.And, speaking of annoying zoning rules, these post-war neighborhoods are zoned as single-family residential, so there are no corner stores to walk to for coffee, a newspaper, an ice cream, or to chat with neighbors over a beer. You have to drive when anybody would prefer to push the stroller a few blocks for a coffee.)

For an example, this pleasant Cape in the same neighborhood is for sale for around $750,000. More Fairfield listings here.