Maggie's FarmWe 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. |
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Friday, March 5. 2010Titanic vs. Lustania
It's about survival
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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10:59
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Thursday, March 4. 2010Immature MenI see that George Will wrote a piece, The Basement Boys -The making of modern immaturity, which echoes the themes I mentioned in my post this week, Are men "naturally" monogamous? Will wearily concludes:
Alas, Will makes the common error of associating years with psychological maturity and strength of character. I have known plenty of mature 18 year-olds - even 16 year-olds, and plenty of infantile 75 year-olds. J-ClassThe Endeavor, off Newport in 2004 Our recent post on this year's America's Cup race in Valencia got me to reviewing the history of J-Class boats, often known as "J-boats." An excellent summary here, which takes note of the surviving Js. I've seen 'em up close, but never sailed one. Open for an invitation, though. I do know how to trim a jib but that monster foresail is one big Genoa, not a jib.
Posted by Bird Dog
in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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12:03
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Wednesday, March 3. 2010Pudd'nheadA Pudd'n Guy who knows his math. An easy investment in a lifetime of free air travel. BTW, it would save us all some linking time and trouble if y'all would just check Vanderleun's American Digest daily, or twice, or thrice daily, same as you do Maggie's.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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18:56
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The UnderclassJust stumbled on this 2001 book by Ted Dalrymple: Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass. I think I'll track down a copy. It's the first book I have heard of from a Psychiatrist taking a look at the topic, and Dalrymple has spent much of his career in tattoo land. I assume he is talking about Brit families of multi-generational poverty and dysfunction rather than the temporarily poor (eg the unemployed, new immigrants, grad students, people down on their luck, etc) or the electively poor (eg hippies, small farmers and farm help, spendthrifts, Maine fishing and hunting guides, aspiring artists and actors, etc) who together make up much of the American poverty stats. Addendum: By coincidence I see from Insty that Dalrymple has a new book:
Can he say that nowadays? Oh, I forgot. He's in the USA now, isn't he? Photo: Ted Dalrymple, aka Anthony Daniels MD, retired Psychiatrist
Posted by Bird Dog
in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:54
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Gobekli TepeIt's an 11,500 year-old temple in southeastern Turkey. h/t to a good piece at Protein.
Posted by Bird Dog
in History, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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15:24
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A plugIt's time we did a plug for a wholesome site, The Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys. Photo is not from it, but sorta could be:
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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09:10
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Tuesday, March 2. 2010Are men "naturally" monogamous?A charming female figure affects men like a drug. A dinner partner asked me "Are men naturally monogamous?" on Saturday. What a silly question. "Of course they aren't." Men are obviously programmed to want to have a good time spreading their DNA around willy nilly, as it were, but, at the same time, normal men are capable of forming these strange things we call "relationships," of forming sturdy and deep attachments, of developing strong character restraints, and of living by moral codes and committments to others. We often refer to those latter things as core aspects of "manliness" in our culture: loyalty, honor, dependability, reliability, responsibility, self-control, providing support and family defence and all that. Otherwise, a guy is just a teenager. The combination of the former and the latter is part of the male challenge. (Females have their own set of life dilemmas.) Still, these "naturally" questions I get always raise the basic problem: How does one discuss "natural" for a naturally culture-building and society-building animal like man? The discussion always becomes circular. Freud was not the first person to address the topic, but he did his best. FAQs
Lots of other important FAQs at Vanderleun
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:42
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Tar and Chip DrivewaysTar and Chip is a good way to do, or re-do, a driveway. It's more attractive than asphalt, cheaper, and affords better traction. It can also be applied on top of an asphalt driveway to improve the appearance. It's basically stone chips or small gravel, of whatever color you chose, rolled into hot tar. Over time, careless snow-plowing will wear away the gravel. Not quickly, though. It lasts for years. This guy loves his tar and chip. Do we have any readers who are tar and chip fans?
Posted by The Barrister
in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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11:55
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CompanionsMarriage, and Conflict or Divorce? A ?Lenten confessional piece, with good links. Who ever said anybody was really a "great catch"? We're all just flawed people.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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10:20
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Sunday, February 28. 2010Train story with a twist(er)
You're the engineer of a great big freight train. Nothing stands in your way! What's that? There's a huge 18-wheeler stalled on the tracks up ahead? No problem! You'll cut that tin can in two and just keep on goin'! Nothing stands in your way! Well, unless you attempt to drive through a tornado, of course. But who'd ever do that?
Posted by Dr. Mercury
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14:00
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Eleven Mile RiverLooking forward to fishing season, and hoping Capt. Tom will have some fresh info for us, especially about fly fishing in Yankeeland. In the meantime, I will dig up some of our archival bamboo fishing posts - That's Editor Bird Dog in the distance, happily fishing in the rain on an April Saturday on the Eleven Mile Brook in CT, with a Haney 7'4" quad bamboo, on Beat #4. Plenty of mostly hatchery Brook Trout, all sizes. Which are not trout, as I am regularly reminded. Called trout, look and act like trout, but Brookies are, in fact, a species of char, not trout.
Saturday, February 27. 2010Ten rules for writing fiction
From various authors. Good fun.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:25
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Friday, February 26. 2010Snowy evening in New England
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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19:09
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The green screen, lies, the baloney of everyday life, and the willing suspension of disbeliefThis fascinating "virtual back lot" video saddened our friend The Anchoress.
It didn't sadden me, but rather impressed me with the use of graphics software. How do they perform this theatrical magic? When I consider it, our lives are packed with incoming lies and virtual realities: the news, stories and fiction writing, advertising, photoshopped photos, politicians' statements, theater, legal "theories," activist's anecdotes, fantasies and imagination, memories, dreams (and the tales our patients tell us about their lives). Mr. Plato had plenty of thoughts on the subject of human perception of reality, and he was darn well aware of the human distorting component too. Some good blogger (I forget who) recently commented that she (I think a she) was sick of the term "narrative." I sympathise, but I am not sick of it yet. I find it useful. The overused term "authentic" is the one I am sick of. I have not yet entered a pomo solipsistic world in which reality is a pure mental construction or, worse yet, a pure social construction (see the wonderful Berger and Luckmann). Reality does exist: Just hit your thumb with a hammer or stub your toe on something in the dark to be reminded of that. Many of us, fortunately, do not distort things very much to ourselves, or to others. However, I do live in a world in which meaning is indeed a human construction, both personally and socially. A "narrative" is an effort, conscious or unconscious, to ascribe meaning: designed to deceive, to manipulate, to entertain, to seduce, to support one's wishes or self respect, to indulge, to self-justify or to rationalize or serve some other defensive purpose, etc. - or just to try to make sense out of the stuff that seems to happen - more or less regardless of its objective validity. Every song, picture, poem, film, and book is a "narrative" too. Like any blog post. "I" am a narrative, I guess, and right now, presenting a narrative about narratives. One of the many interesting things about being a shrink is to contemplate a person's "narrative," whether it is just a report of something that happened, or a life story. When somebody is engaged in an exploratory, depth treatment, these narratives change over time - which is why we never take them at face value. We assume a narrative meets some present want, or need, or fantasy. Our always-challenging and endlessly-interesting job is to probe the meaning of the narratives we see or hear in the work of untangling what ails a person's heart and soul. One of our luxuries as people in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy field is the reliable consistency of the human personality "structure" (another term I hate - shrinks often use fancy latinate terms and complex conceptualizations for ordinary things): like a jigsaw puzzle, there is always a picture of something in there somewhere. Another is the luxury of not worrying too much about the literal truthfulness of things (unless dealing with undiagnosed sociopaths). I could go on and on about this, but that's enough for now.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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09:50
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This morning's proof of AGWIs anything more inviting than a cozy Dunkin' Donuts early on a cold snowy morning? Hot chocolate or coffee? Or both? The friendly and cheerful legal Hispanic gals there know what you like and they manage to get to work on time no matter what the weather or "climate" offers. I am usually game for a plain stick. And a medium milk no sugar. Then to the shoveling as the wind whistles and moans through the trees. A good workout. That chest pain is just in your imagination...
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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05:05
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Thursday, February 25. 2010The case against college educationMan, do I agree with Ramesh in Time. One quote from his piece of the above title:
Posted by The Barrister
in Education, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:35
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A world full of poetsFrom the New Math of Poetry in Chronicle:
Posted by Opie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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11:05
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Wednesday, February 24. 2010VicenzaVicenza is an uncrowded, almost unvisited UNESCO World Heritage site with a great number of Palladian buildings. The nearby La Rotonda was shown here recently, but usually Americans visit it as a side trip from over-crowded Venice. A great pity. Our suggestion is to stay in Vicenza or Verona, and if absolutely necessary, take a day-trip to Venice!
Piazza dei Signori, Vicenza. The two columns were built at different times. The lion represents the Venetian republic and was once the only column in the square. It wasn't until over a century later that the second column was built in honor of Vicenza and its citizens. Street Scene, Vicenza
Below is Villa Valmarana, between La Rotonda and Vincenza. In 1757, Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico were invited to Vicenza to fresco rooms in the Villa Valmarana and in the adjoining guest quarters, the so-called 'foresteria'. Their patron was Count Giustino Valmarana, a scholar and theater enthusiast. Tiepolo frescoed the walls and ceilings of the vestibule and four ground-floor rooms, while his son executed the decoration in the adjacent guest house.
Posted by Gwynnie
in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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17:00
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Tuesday, February 23. 2010Big wave
Posted by Gwynnie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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11:09
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Monday, February 22. 2010The 5 year-old daughter every guy needsListen to the whole thing:
Posted by Opie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:33
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Sunday, February 21. 2010David ParsonsWe were fortunate to get to David Parson's Remember Me last night at the Joyce. Even if you have minimal interest in dance, it's well-worth it. The performance is stunningly good. The style, Mrs. BD tells me, is inspired by Paul Taylor whose work I always could enjoy. New to me was the East Village Opera Company (providing most of the music), which rocks classic opera. As an aspiring curmudgeon, I would not have thought that I would have found that to be as wonderful as it is. Here's their Nessun Dorma. Their stuff is dynamite and reminds us that Italian opera was the pop music of its time and there is no reason for it to become "museum music." Check it out, Anchoress! The interesting story of the East Village Opera Company is here. You can buy their Olde School CD here.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:58
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Free-thinkersSomebody has given AVI a book. He is funny. A quote:
Posted by Bird Dog
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14:58
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