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.
Do any adult men wear pajamas anymore? Do they even exist for men? If they do, are they just for douches or very elderly?
If you live in a chilly house with just a wood stove or something, I understand bundling up at night. But how? Long johns? What about nightshirts?
Without having gathered any data on how other guys sleep, my guess is that most guys sleep either in the nude to feel rough and ready, or in underwear.
The Turk showed up in the no man's land between the armies dressed in his finest- "his shoulders were fixed with a paire of great wings, compacted of eagle feathers within ridge of silver, richly garnished with gold and precious stones." Smith dispatched him on the first pass. Upset by the loss of his captain, another Turk challenged Smith. The bout began with an exchange of blows and ended with pistol shots. Smith took a round in the breastplate, but his Turkish opponent suffered a debilitating blow to his arm, eventually collapsing. The final duel occurred when Smith gave the Turks a chance to redeem their honor. The contest was settled by the use of battle axes, with Smith triumphing once more. When Smith brought the three heads before the commanding Turkish general-each head mounted on a lance-he was embraced by the general and given a horse and a jewel-encrusted scimitar. The sweetest honor came from Prince Zsigmond Báthory of Transylvania, who granted Smith the right to wear "three Turkish heads" on his shield and bestowed on him the title of "English gentleman." John Smith had succeeded in exchanging "farmer" for "gentleman" by the swing of his sword.
Like rock stars, famous tenors get all the girls they want. Women go nuts over them. In the TV news business and in Hollywood they have a term for them: "star-f...ers." We used to term them "groupies."
Mrs. Barrister advises that, the closer a person reaches maturity, the more important it is to dress well without appearing sloppy. I agree with that, and I notice it. Rightly or wrongly, appearance has impact.
It matters more when you have a coat and tie job, or a suit and tie job. Have you ever noticed how well even elderly gents look in an up-to-date well-fitted suit?
However, I am writing this post to discuss shoes for coat-and-tie men, or even no-tie. Surely it matters as much or more for women, but my knowledge there is minimal because when Mrs. B says "Jimmy Choos" I think she is saying "Mumble Shoes."
Men's dress/work shoes can range from London's hand-made bespoke shoes to Nordstrom's off the rack. The more expensive, the longer they last. Good ones last a lifetime, and get seasoned with time, if not abused so guys rarely need new good shoes. A good rule is that pretty good shoes (over, say, $350-400) should rarely be worn 2 days in a row.
I generally have a modest dress shoe shelf, a black and a corduvan dress loafer, and a black and brown pair of tie shoes. My old black Brooks tassel loafers finally had to go - my feet flattened too much for them and they proved unstretchable.
It strikes me as ironic that in a realm like education, the lesson America’s scholastic visionaries never seem to learn is also the most simple lesson of all—that education should be about educating. Theorists persist in reinventing the wheel, sometimes with good intentions and sometimes in the service of agendas that are rather less defensible and/or wholesome than those publicly stated. Such is the case with the hottest currency to emerge from the pointy-headed precincts of pedagogical theory: social-emotional learning, or SEL...
Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.
Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency...
Somewhere around the time that "new math" became an educational fad, "whole word" reading was developed. Like New Math, the reasons for a new method were never made clear because everybody had been learning to read just fine with "phonics," otherwise known as "sounding it out."
We're in another era now. Now, there is "New, new math" from Common Core that nobody can understand. Supposedly it's meant to offer a deeper understanding of numbers. There is no more plain long division even though that old division sign was a great tool.
Will the government education machine finally accept that phonics is the easiest way to read? K–12: Phonics Is Winning
It's a peculiar topic, best addressed in specifics rather than in generalities. Specific acquired skills and developed talents. It's not too difficult to measure their value. Can you play world-class violin? Can you frame a shed that will not fall down? Can you make a route over a mountain from point A to point B? Can you help an autistic child behave in a civil manner? Can you hit a fastball? Most adults become pretty good at assessing the obvious merits (and flaws) of others. For less evident skills, an oral exam or written exam or performance exam vets out specific merits pretty well. Especially logic and math.
We want bridges that will not collapse, and there is nothing easy at all about that. Yet, our elites happily drive over those bridges with any clue about how they came to be.
Politics is not my beat, but on a rare perusal of The New York Times today (dental office), I could not help but be struck by how the winds blow down there at their headquarters. If Trump is for it, they're against it from the news slants to the opinion (today, Trump is an existential threat to the Republic)..
Even when Dems were for something just a few years ago in Obama times. Suddenly, the NYT and the Dems have pivoted towards hawkish in the Middle East. Suddenly, illegal immigration is desirable. Israel is now evil. Our energy independence is bad. And so on. You can fill in further examples in our comments. Here's the guiding principle, as best as I can tell:
One of the books I am reading now: Leon Uris' Trinity (1976). It's a novelized visit to a sorrowful piece Irish history, and so well-done that it's difficult to imagine that Uris was not Irish.
That potato fungus, and its consequences, killed or drove away over 1 million Irish. The book puts you there. Mrs. BD is half-Irish, and tells me "Stop" when I read sections to her. Mostly the Catholic peasants had the worst time. They were sharecroppers, peasants. The Scots Presbyterians and the Brit Anglican overlords did somewhat better, at the expense of the sharecroppers. It is heartbreaking.
Lucky thousands made it to Canada and the US. Luckily for the US and Canada. The Brits were no heroes of the history, but they were stuck with the tragedy too. It was complicated, like all such things.
Wow. A biography to make almost all of us feel like lazy slackers: 
Mrs. Barrister advises that, the closer a person reaches maturity, the more important it is to dress well without appearing sloppy. I agree with that, and I notice it. Rightly or wrongly, appearance has impact. 