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.
A reader mentioned the great Jacques Barzun. Years ago I had a friend who took a semester from Stanford only to take Barzun's famous cultural history and philosophy course at Columbia. It wasn't a course you could "take." You had to be approved for it and had to commit to it. Sometimes he would interview students to make sure they were up to it.
It was 3 books to read/week, and you had to stand and deliver in class. High standards for an undergrad (and grad) class. Barzun also never gave an A. He told the kids that nobody could digest all of this to his expectations. It was an academic humanities boot camp.
My pal, who had far more IQs than me, went on to a brilliant academic career and has always praised Prof. Barzun for it.
Ten years ago, I showed up for my first day as a high school teacher. I had landed a job in the best school of what is often called a “destination district.” Still, I knew I was facing an uphill battle. Warnings abounded of an American public school system in decline. But I was undeterred. I had that youthful sense that education needed change and I was just the one to change it...
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak— Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life."
I'll start it off: A dinner which included woodcock ravioli with gibier sauce, followed by roasted (boned) Quail stuffed with foie gras. The appropriate wines, of course. Followed by a tarte tatin - with a hard caremelized crust. Ice cream on top.
My second might be a dinner when we indulged in 24 Wellfleet oysters each, followed by broiled Cod, Portuguese-style.
I could go beyond two, but that's the science.
The Mrs. would list Maryland Crabcakes in a Eastern Shore crab shack, and a burger she and her gal-pal had in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She claims they are both worth a trip, and I concur with real crab cakes.
I've had fancy meals all over NYC and Europe, but those are my best.
Initially, the term studia humanitatis didn’t signify the pursuit of theological, metaphysical, or philosophical knowledge, or, as some contemporary commentators claim about the modern humanities, the cultivation or training of the soul as an end in itself. But they propounded a more modest notion: that the kinds of technical skills and knowledge that humanists taught—reading, writing, and speaking about ancient Latin and Greek texts—helped prepare students for study in the higher faculty, as well as for lives as active citizens.
It is that modest notion which eventually led to the devaluation of the studia humanitatis in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to Wellmon, scholars began to look down on the humanities because they didn’t prepare students to do anything in particular—but rather just imparted generalized knowledge intended to groom the elite...
The miles-wide asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago wiped out nearly all the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species.
But some creatures survived, including certain rat-sized mammals that would later diversify into the more than 6,000 mammal species that exist today, including humans...
This is sick. Imagine if they were interrogating a white or Asian guy. Listen to those idiots:"I want to guide and nurture your social and intellectual development."
It is no surprise that some people do not get their brains around math and statistics, but civilization is at the point at which such topics are basic education for understanding the world.
I like the example once used on CNN when they reported that your risk of death from COVID had doubled. True: at some point months ago it had gone from something like 0.01 to 0.02. Something like that.
There has always been national division about all sorts of things, from the time of the American revolution. Most Americans, or at least a large fraction, had no interest in separation from the crown. Disagreement is just natural but it sometimes seems surreal to me what people want from government. Like, everything they need including happiness. Good luck with that. Serfdom was a predictable life, but not something Americans wanted.
Socialism is immoral because it rests on a benign fantasy that masks a malignant truth. The fantasy is that a nation’s production, distribution, and wealth can be entrusted to a benevolent state dedicated to the common good. There is no such state. There are only people with power. Long centuries of constitutional restraints have schooled these naked apes in the habits of decency. But as the restraints weaken, the habits fall away. Not sometimes—always. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Socialism, which centralizes power, leads to oppression and human misery. Like the t-shirt says, you can vote your way in, but you have to shoot your way out.
