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.
I don't know why they bother to wonder whether he was gay or not. Sounds more shy and inhibited to me, but who cares? I didn't know that he was a New Yorker.
Craig's List has it all. I am told you can search "Diesel," "Dog Food," or "Pain Relief," and if you sort through the listings you can find whatever you want. Heroin, Meth, coke, crack, Ecstasy, pot, Oxycontin, etc.
I do not want this stuff, but lots of people do. Yes, they deliver to your door or workplace in manila envelopes, but they do not take credit cards.
Thus the successful government war on drugs, ongoing since the Nixon administration. Prohibition never works. This is an ordinary Black Market similar to the Black Market for booze during Prohibition (when Joe Kennedy got rich with his Boston mobster buddies).
I am opposed to drug prohibition, and I am opposed to substance abuse as a terrible life plan.
It's just a matter of degree. Shouldn't the government simply put Prozac and amphetamines into the water supplies? Historically, one of the selling points of Coke was the coke in the mix.
It's not a bad deal to be poor in America. Government benefits are almost endless, not to mention private charity. Everybody will try to give you money and stuff. American "poor" don't have to work, have big TVs, cars, and air-conditioning, EBT cards, food stamps, and subsidized housing. Good for them.
If feeling poor is appealing, there is a sure-fire way to accomplish that. Be single, have kids, and don't work. Don't get any religious sustenance, and don't learn how to do anything useful. Add a little substance abuse or jail tattoos to that or some body piercings, for maximum effect, and make sure you have no positive social network. In other words, don't build your life in a rational, civilized manner.
Well, there is another way. What's the "poorest" village in America? Kiryas Joel. They are all on welfare. Happy. I believe many of them work off the books, too.
What can be more fun during Thanksgiving break than shooting a gun with family and friends? It can be the best time of year to get some target practice. I will usually grab my father-in-law and my boys and head out to a local range. This year, we didn't go. However, we typically visit family on Fire Island the following weekend, and they provided a surprise. Skeet shooting off the deck into the Great South Bay. 12 gauge pump actions and a 12 gauge over/under were the tools available.
“The American market for straightforward guides to etiquette dwarfs the British one. Even though large numbers of the British and especially the English are sticklers for etiquette, they pretend that such matters are either unworthy of discussion or in no need of it. Much more popular are guides that give them cynical or supercilious treatment. These reflect, wittily and sometimes not so wittily, on when it is a good idea to lie, how to navigate the hell of a second family, and the art of deflecting people who threaten to be tedious. It is a defining feature of English manners that they can be treated, simultaneously, as vitally important yet also comical. But then one could apply the very same terms to Englishness itself.”
I do plenty of DIY stuff around the house, but wish I was this handy. Gotta compliment the guy, he did a helluva job restoring this cabin and making it livable.
(h/t American Digest) - Africa's Aid Mess - Renowned author Paul Theroux discusses
why the philanthropy of Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Bono, and Jeffrey
Sachs largely fails. Here's what works.
A quote:
I was impressed by the self-sufficiency of ordinary people. Without much in the way of outside help, the people in the countries I knew managed to endure, usually through the simplest traditional means, and finally to prevail. Africa has the schools, the money and the resources to fix its own problems; it's appalling to think of donors telling them otherwise, of the whole continent terminally indebted and living on handouts.
It seems that the preening condescension of Western billionaires' "help" is not what Africans need. Like the Appalachian hillbillies in the 1960s, they don't know they need help but, like most humans, they'll take a freebie.
Does Africa need my help? Investment is one thing, but help?
I think even the sternest of moralists—such as I—could not help but think on hearing her story of Blake’s line, “some to misery are born.” Prison was the first time in her life she had experienced reasonably consistent and decent treatment; and sad to relate, her loss of freedom was a boon to her. She flourished (comparatively speaking) there.
When I returned home from having examined her, my wife told me that she had received a telephone call from her bank. The person from the bank had asked for her by name and then said, “First I have to ask you some security questions.”
“Since you phoned me,” said my wife, “are you sure it is not I who should be asking you some security questions?”
Kudlow on the radio today ruminated about, bemoaned, the lack of moral and spiritual equality in America today.
It reminded me of something a niece said about a friend, who had gotten engaged, at Thanksgiving: "She's psycho-socially a bit primitive, not too refined, so they're a good match."
Here's one quote of the Inquisitor's monologue to the returned and imprisoned Jesus Christ:
So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, "Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!" And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same.
Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down to Thee alone -- the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.
Inquiring minds want to know. Here's ours, for around 23 people - family and friends:
Unknown hors d'oevres (my Sis brings) with Champagne.
Two turkeys, one in the oven with cornbread stuffing, and one on the grill. Extra stuffing. Gibier gravy. My Mom is making her famous artery-smoothing mashed potatoes with sour cream and cream cheese and chives etc in them (mashed potatoes like that plus regular red wine intake have kept my 85 year-old Dad alive and kicking thus far). Brussel Sprouts sauteed with bacon and shallots. String beans with almonds. Creamed baby onions. Sweet potatoes done somehow by my Bro. Mountains of various forms of Cranberry sauces (The best? Orange-Cranberry Relish). Corn pudding (from good dried corn like Cope's) from my M-in-law. Good red wine, cider, along with lots of Martinelli's for the teetotalers and an assortment of really good beers including Palm and some of the German Weissbraus that I have become fond of.
Pumpkin Pie made by Mrs. BD from fresh pumpkin, and Squash Pie from fresh Butternut squash. Apple Pies made by another Sis. Indian Pudding. Pumpkin Cheesecake. Ice cream and whipped cream on the side. Some decent Port for after, with cigars for the gents (and for any women who want them. As far as I know, Mrs. BD has not smoked a cigar since the Macanudo she rebelliously enjoyed at our wedding reception).
The best part? Everybody helps clean everything up after, and nobody leaves until it's all done. It gets like The Cat in the Hat around here. The strong men scrub the pots and pans and carry the rental tables and chairs out to the driveway. Our family - families - are like that: they seem to enjoy work and effort, and seek it out. If they can't find any work at hand to be done or any mess to be tidied, they go for a five mile run or split some firewood or build a wall or do something useful. None of my own kin will watch TV. It's Yankee blood. We do not do idle very well, even on vacation. Or especially on vacation. Maybe it's a flaw - but mess and idleness are the haunts and playthings of the devil. We can rest and "relax" all we want when we're dead. Until then, it's "Hi, Ho, Go, Go" as long as we can.
With a world so full of wonders and challenges, why leave a legacy of a dent in a sofa?
I am not sure what science has to do with ethics, or what they mean by science. Everything is called "science" now - political science, social science, etc.
In my view, of course not. Science cannot even answer science questions but can only offer up their best theories du jour. Just ask Feynman. That's what he always said. Science is a method of pursuit, rarely gives us permanent facts.
Why do Asians and Ashkenazi Jews seem to be so smart, multi-talented, and clever? Is it genetics, cultural, or both, or what?
Or do we just see the smartest of them in the USA? In any event, they often make those of us descended from northern European immigrant bumpkins seem a little slow on the uptake.
I agree with Penn and Teller. Prohibition does nothing but create criminals. Fortunately, most people do not want to be druggies because it is a lousy plan for a good, wholesome, dignified, and productive life. If you want to be a druggie, that's your problem, but don't do it on my nickel.
Many of the women who purport to speak for the modern woman sound as if testosterone were toxic. However, I wonder how many of them (the non-Lesbians, that is) would ever claim that they seek a husband who is timid, frail, non-physical, unforceful, indecisive, unauthoritative, unadventurous, passive rather than restless, and lacking in intellectual and sexual aggressiveness and vigor?
From The Brothers Karamazov (1879). The chapter is one of the most famous passages in literature, and it's time we re-linked it. 
What's on your menu? (re-posted) -