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.
Some people like to crate their dogs at home, and some do not. Furthermore, some dogs love their crates and some hate to feel confined. We tended to crate our previous dog, but not our current pup. I never minded the look of a dog crate or two in a family room, but Orvis has some that are more functional for people - and which look more like furniture.
A wonderful story. The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, owned and run by the Dutch West India Company, was a quickly growing and boisterous commercial settlement of over 200 when the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. When the Dutch sent a friendly delegation up to Plymouth in 1624 or so with goodies and gifts of sugar, William Bradford sent a letter back with the delegation saying that he was sorry that he had nothing desirable to offer to return the favor.
On quote from the book re the Wickquasgeck Trail:
Broadway does not follow the precise course of the Indian trail, as some histories would have it. To follow the Wickquasgeck Trail today, one would take Broadway north from the Customs House, jog eastward along Park Row, then following the Bowery to 23rd St. From there, the trail snaked up the east side of the island. It crossed westward through the top of Central Park; the paths of Broadway and the Wickquasgeck Trail converge again at the top of the island. The trail continued into the Bronx: Route 9 follows it northward.
The Customs House was the site of the original Dutch fort to protect them from the Indians. The Lenape Indians turned out to be friendly to the Dutch (believing them to be potential allies against other tribes), so the fort was never well-maintained. Hence the Brits had no problem taking the town in 1664.
Today the Customs House is the home of the Museum of the American Indian. Worth a visit.
Related, years ago I read Beverly Swerling's City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan, which does a great job evoking the times - and the medical care of the times. Many would argue, I think, that NYC remains more of a Dutch heritage city than an English one.
How about Florist's Transworld Delivery - FTD? Isn't that a sort of business that was waiting a long time for the internet to appear?
(Wiki says: FTD was founded as Florists' Telegraph Delivery in 1910, to help customers send flowers remotely on the same day by using florists in the FTD network who are near the intended recipient. It originated as a retailers' cooperative and began a process of demutualization in 1994.)
FTD was recently bought by an internet company, United Online.
While many if not most businesses have benefited in one way or another by the internet, some businesses like FTD seem to have been made for it - just born too early.
Post your examples/ideas about pre-internet businesses, which in retrospect seem to have been designed for the internet, in our comments.
Right Wing Prof is in a nursing home now, more or less, I think, and dealing with his apparently terminal cancer, pain, and frustrating dependency on others - yet posting as he is able at his Central Pennsylvania Orthodox site.
God bless this sweet, devout, tough, shy fellow who has been a blog pal for several years. From his posts at his other site, Right Wing nation, he has been one heck of a devoted, creative, and demanding prof of mathematics, statistics, and business-and accounting-related numbers.
I recently accused him of morphine-blogging. That was my attempt at levity. One of his recent posts:
One of my brothers and his family came the night before last, and are still here, but they’re leaving tomorrow morning (they went to eat; they’ll be back later this evening). My other brother and his wife got here a couple of hours ago, and will leave Monday. And April, who has been here for a couple of days, will leave the day after tomorrow, then, it will be back to Christopher and the folks from Holy Trinity, until next weekend, when yet more family comes from Indiana.
Dark place or not, I have people who love me, and I’m not sure that’s the case for everybody here.
I was being facetious yesterday about Climategate and Palin, but not today: is the Afghanistan "plan" timed to provide cover for health care? Sort of a wag the dog thing?
Am I getting smarter about how pols manipulate us, or am I getting paranoid? Or both?
I work as a film location scout in New York City. My day is basically spent combing the streets for interesting and unique locations for feature films. In my travels, I often stumble across some pretty incredible sights, most of which are ignored every day by thousands of New Yorkers in too much of a rush to pay attention.
As it happens, it's my job to pay attention, and I've started this blog to keep a record of what I see.
Caption and photo came in over the transom -might be photoshopped but we don't know -
By the length of his beard and the gray legs this bull moose must be over 10 years old. He appears to be over 8 feet at the shoulder hump … this fellow is ONE BIG BOY! The picture was taken near Elliott Lake, Ontario, Canada on a dirt road, probably the width of 1.5 cars.
A fellow can always use another comfortable jacket. Here are a few outdoor and sporting jackets from the Orvis Hunting catalog. (For full disclosure, Orvis was kind enough to UPS $1 million in US currency to our Cayman banker as our compensation for posting this.)
These fine-looking fancy jackets are obviously not meant for heavy brush-busting, chain-sawing, snow plowing, duck hunting, or ditch-digging. (Waxed jackets are a separate topic.)
I just read about the circular firing squads at the IPCC, with calls for the firing of the CPU and even for the disbanding of the entire IPCC (why not the rest of the UN at the same time?). Plus other good details at Climate Depot and also in the Political Climate column of Icecap.
Addendum #3: The more I think about it, the more I think that Climategate might be the biggest expose of the year. And yet the MSM will barely mention it because it DOES NOT FIT THE SOCIALIST NARRATIVE. Unbelievable, for people who supposedly want viewers and to sell newspapers - but they did the same thing with the ACORN stories. Thus for real news we must rely on amateurs, semi-pros, and bloggers. This from Clive Crook via Blair:
In my previous post on Climategate
I blithely said that nothing in the climate science email dump
surprised me much. Having waded more deeply over the weekend I take
that back.
The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their
willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is
surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues,
this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC process. It
is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David
Henderson called the environmental policy milieu. It goes to the core of that process ...
Also at the Met's show is Homer's Snap the Whip (1872). It is a small painting (and just one of several of his versions on the same theme):
That picture reminded me of a snap we took of Nathan Hales's Schoolhouse in East Haddam, CT a week ago. Hale taught there for a few months after graduating from Yale. He was bored with living in the sticks, and left to teach in the "city" in New London.
Bright red berries produced in the fall close along the stems of a deciduous shrub, most often in damp areas in the Eastern US, is Winterberry - Ilex verticillata.
Yes some ilex, ie hollies, are deciduous.
Many cultivars with larger and more abundant berries are now available of this native shrub. They are commonly used in weaths and Christmas plant arrangements. Still, the plant looks best in the woods and swamps.
The Glorious History of Handel's Messiah
How about Florist's Transworld Delivery - FTD? Isn't that a sort of business that was waiting a long time for the internet to appear?
A friend and beer afficionado responded to our post about Sam Adams' Winter Classics with this email:
Via 
Right Wing Prof is in a nursing home now, more or less, I think, and dealing with his apparently terminal cancer, pain, and frustrating dependency on others - yet posting as he is able at his 
Bright red berries produced in the fall close along the stems of a deciduous shrub, most often in damp areas in the Eastern US, is