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.
The USA is an exceptional country because of its freedoms and its constitution which protects them. However, Britain is our mother. Britain's exceptionalism, in its rebellions against state and government power, and its honoring of freedom was the inspiration to take the idea of individual freedom further.
To a point, it seems to. After that point, not much. Teacher quality matters of course, but I do not see how school buildings matter. Do high-tech blackboards improve education? I do not see how. Blackboards (now whiteboards mostly), pencils, and paper do the trick.
Tower shoots (not "hunts") are the American version of British and European driven shoots. High birds, flying fast although they have never really flown in their lives - pen-raised birds. Disney shooting.
Supershoots throw up 1000 birds in a morning.
When I was younger, I enjoyed these shoots a lot. Plenty of fun for the "sports". Now, not so much because it just feels like slaughter. I do enjoy the nice lunches and drinks afterwards. I now prefer real bird hunting in the north woods. Killing birds is fun, but hunt is a real thing. Good exercise, and you miss most of the time.
It has been a project of the American Left to destroy Western civilization, or at least its history. It seems like a fool's errand to me, but also evil in a way.
It might work in spineless academia, but not in real life. Stop by to see a show at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC sometime. There will be a line of thousands from all over the world waiting to get in. Every language, nationality, color, etc. Universally known as best museum in the world if not best in every single area.
People know what is amazing to look at, despite academic fads.
My high school Art History course was mind-expanding, cave art through Egyptian and Assyrian up to the Renaissance (yes, we had to learn the math of the Parthenon's steps and of the columns), and the required semester of Art History Intro in college almost equally-so. We learned a bit about Asian and African art too because of their influences on Western art and design.
Pieta was carved by Michelangelo at age 23. That is just not normal. What have I done lately? What have those students and academics done lately? Those smartypants are not Michelangelo.
The Academy has gone commercial. Mass market. We all know that. STEM hasn't dumbed down yet. Pretty much nobody gets an A at MIT, even today. I hear the stories. A C+ in math can be high praise.
A Nick Gillespie interview with the always-interesting and fast-talking Amity Shlaes about her new book Great Society: A New History.
Here's the interview podcast. A lot of history of elite experts packed in there, with their social programs to solve everything. Shlaes is one smart cookie, seems like a nice person too.
It's a heck of a tale. Somewhere around the first third of it it dawned on me that I had read it long ago, but that didn't matter because I had forgotten the ending.
“The great poems, plays, novels, stories teach us how to go on living, even submerged under forty fathoms of bother and distress. If you live ninety years you will be a battered survivor. Your own mistakes, accidents, failures, and otherness beat you down. Rise up at dawn and read something that matters as soon as you can.”
Advice from Harold Bloom, shortly before his recent death
"To paraphrase Sheldon Richman, however, just because some people cannot be trusted with liberty does not mean other people can be trusted with power.
DBx: No single human inclination has done more harm to humanity than that which turns us to power as the first and surest ‘solution’ to problems imaginary and even real."
In our part of the US Northeast, we have these seasons of recreation:
Winter:
- doing exciting things in NYC or Boston, cultural stuff or sports-watching - skiing if you can afford it - hiking if not too icy, or snow-shoeing - Paddle tennis - sweat when it's 10 degrees F, at night under lights - Deer hunting if you can stand the boredom ( I can not, but I like to eat them)
Spring:
- Planning or planting the damn gardens - why do we bother? - Fly fishing - Turkey hunting - Hikes
Summer:
- Boating, and saltwater fishing - Presidential Range hikes, with bugs - Weeding the f-ing gardens - Vacations on salt water or in the mountains, with swims - mowing the meadows in August - Outdoor tennis - just a wonderful joy - Skeet, trap, and clays - to get back into it
Fall:
- bird hunting, duck hunting - best time for mountain hiking - Fox hunting - for needed insane adrenaline - best time for Euroland trips - chain saw fun, and stocking up on firewood
Year-round
- horse-riding, indoors or out - Tennis, indoors or out
With a world-wide readership, what do you like? Or do you live in a place without seasons?
Much of the stuff we own, or which we even value, has minimal monetary value or might even cost money to get rid of. It might be useful to us or of sentimental value or other sorts of personal value (that is true value, emotional value I suppose) but of no value to anybody else. Talking about meaning.
Monetary value is less than you think, and the effort to unload a possession of any monetary value is large. Just try getting rid of an over-aged piano. Pianos have life spans, unlike violins.
American Scholar's podcast on The Global Garage Sale. The interviewer is a bit of a nut, but the guy is interesting. They are both sort-of anti-consumption with a minimalist ethic. For the "environment," of course...Lots of our "good" stuff ends up in landfills despire our virtuous intentions.
I do know some people for whom the only value of anything is monetary.
It has been a project of the American Left to destroy Western civilization, or at least its history. It seems like a fool's errand to me, but also evil in a way.
In our part of the US Northeast, we have these seasons of recreation: