Maggie's Farm

“Everyone believes in God, though nobody loves Him. No one believes in the Devil, and yet his smell is everywhere.”

- Baudelaire  (h/t David Warren)

An enjoyable podcast introduction to Dante's Purgatorio

Purgatory, it seems, is the place for purging of sin and evil through penitence and painful self-awareness,  and embracing virtue. A beautiful seven-story mountain. In some ways, Purgatorio is begging us to take purgatory today rather than later.

I plan to check into one of these this weekend: Hillsdale Online Course Catalog

Teaching French in some NYC high schools. 

Sad. What she doesn't mention is that, as a newbie, she got the most thankless jobs. 

From the article:

 For a small school located in the nearest thing to the middle of nowhere, Hillsdale has an outsized impact. Its graduates can be found working all over Capitol Hill and in the White House. Its monthly newsletter, Imprimis, has a circulation of 3.7 million, and its free online courses in history, politics, and philosophy have been viewed millions of times. It could reasonably be said that, under Arnn’s leadership, Hillsdale has become a full-blown multimedia company, which just happens to include a college among its many endeavors.

"We've grown up in a world full of fractals."  A delightful introduction to Fractals in Nature.

Not much math needed. 

Seventy-one years ago this month — in January 1948 — a black, 17-year-old high school dropout left home. The last grade he had completed was the 9th grade. He had no skills, little experience, and not a lot of maturity. Yet he was able to find jobs to support himself, to a far greater extent than someone similar can find jobs today.

I know because I was that black 17-year-old. And, decades later, I did research on economic conditions back then...

h/t Moonbattery

It's high time academics started standing up to the campus thought police:

 Last August, after I’d published an article in the Times entitled Obsession with gender identity goes too far, in which I expressed doubts about the current ideology of transgenderism, I was immediately labelled ‘transphobic’. However, as I had explained, in order to fear or hate something, I’d first have to have some idea of what it is I’m fearing or hating; and my problem with claims to transgender identity is that I find myself unable to understand their content. After all, what does it mean to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’, now that feminists have rightly taught us to jettison sexist stereotypes? Before I am able to be phobic, I first need to get past being baffled.

With two criminal parents, no surprise he made the wrong turn.  Still, a great talent. I'd like to own one of his Picassos.

He's now an excellent forgery-detector because he knows the artists, and knows forgery, from the inside-out. A highly-talented and charming sociopath.

 One of the world's most notorious art forgers, Guy Ribes is profiled in this documentary. For over three decades, Ribes has scored major deals selling works by Picasso, Matisse, and other legends, with a twist: Ribes himself painted the facsimile works himself. Fake heirs, ruthless dealers, and more - it's all here in the life of Guy Ribes, a Genuine Forger.

Their 60% polyester semi-dress pants are comfortably stretchy, hold a good pleat, do not wrinkle, and are as comfortable as sweat pants. So are $200 wool trousers obsolete? For me, yes, mostly.

Since I wear sport jacket and tie to work - not a suit - these are perfect for me. They are not really "casual" trousers, but can double as that too. Did I mention that they look good, and are cheap as dirt? 

They have a slim fit for the youthful hipsters, and a less-slim but also trim-looking line so you don't look like an old fogey but not like you live in Brooklyn.

How did Amazon get into this biz?  Good for them. 

The wartime memoir of Siegfried Knappe. Exciting read by a good guy and excellent soldier who was on the wrong side. BTW, most German soldiers were not members of the NAZI Party. After the war, he and his wife had a good life in Iowa.

From Amazon:

Based on Knappe’s wartime diaries, filled with 16 pages of photos he smuggled into the West at war’s end, Soldat delivers a rare opportunity for the reader to understand how a ruthless psychopath motivated an entire generation of ordinary Germans...

A parlor is something like the room in which you welcome smaller groups of guests, without TV, clutter, or junk like that in it. Same idea as a "sitting room" or a "drawing room" (to go back in time). Or to go into the 1950s, what's a "den"?

There's another old-fashioned room: the Library. Pretentious rich people still build them, and let their decorators fill them with books. But any room can contain your most precious books...

What's a "living room," and what's a "family room"?  The uses of home spaces has changed over time. In past, when the priest or pastor came to call for tea or a Scotch, you would meet in the parlor. Today, he or she would probably prefer to meet in the kitchen or the "family room".  Life, even for the very wealthy, has become more relaxed and informal. Small "d" democratic.

What has changed? Middle class living and relative prosperity, TV (the electronic hearth), and the decline of formality with the decline of aristocracy and the rise of meritocracy.

Anyway, I suppose the question is whether you have a relatively formal (tidy, no TV etc) living space, and, if so, how often is it used?

And maybe, of more general interest, how do you use your home's public spaces?

Do any of our readers regularly use Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram?

My instinct tells me that few do, but I could be wrong. I avoid those things completely. I like my social life to be in person, so it is real.

What limit do you put on the number of your social events per week? 

What I mean includes guys' or gals' nites out, dinners out with friends, lunches with groups or friends, meeting friends for drinks, parties, etc. Does not include Bible study or church but does include after-church brunch with church friends.

My limit and preference is three/week. I have no idea what "normal" is, but I would guess 2-3 non-family social outings per week might be average. I always enjoy these things and love seeing my pals and our friends, but I need my own quiet time and wife time too. Life is too short, time is too little for everything.

Scott Adam's explains why

At Great Books' podcast, an enjoyable discussion of Dante's Inferno. "Dante was a man of tremendous and wide desires, desires for personal, literary, political excellence. And then he lost everything."  Of course, Verona is not a bad place to which to be exiled. That's where he wrote The Divine Comedy. In the end, they did make his tomb back in Santa Croce.

Nice statue of him in Verona. 

"Never believe everything you read on the internet."

- Abraham Lincoln 

Steven Pinker discusses his book: Enlightenment Wars: Some Reflections on ‘Enlightenment Now,’ One Year Later

He only scratches the surface of the Enlightenment ideas of individualism and individual freedom which, I have been led to believe, are Western Christian and/or Judeo-Christian notions. I don't know.