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.
Readers know that I have long rejected the notion of a college-level Liberal Arts-focused education as an economic investment. However, I have praised it as a potentially life-enhancing guided exploration more deeply into our culture and into current knowledge than secondary school can do (although good private schools can do it). "Cultivation of the mind" and all that.
In other words, do I do not think of it as utilitarian. (Colleges were designed for scholars and clery - for the cognitive and/ or financially elite.) I learned much in high school and in college which have never provided me with a penny of profit but which I believe have enhanced my life in countless ways: Geology, Statistics, Intro Music History, Ancient Greek History, Russian Lit, etc.
However, when I went to college the ways of learning these things outside college were not as accessible as they are today. The self-informed scholars of the past had to spend hours in libraries, after work, just to try to figure out where to start. Today, you can get the best Music History course in the world from the Teaching Company for $200. and enjoy it at leisure - with no exams.
So we return to my recurrent question: Is Liberal Arts college about job-preparation, for networking, is it a meaningless credential, is it a way to delay adulthood, or is it a guided exploration into our culture and knowledge for the deeply curious and scholarly with high IQ?
In Obama's economy, the reality hits. Plumbers making $70-150/hr make much more money than most recent college grads and lead more independent and entrepreneurial careers. In fact, more than many recently-graduated professionals.
Those are old twin stables, the Scott's and the Beinecke's, in the East Village. Hard to imagine how many stables there were in NYC in 1870. Many converted to modern purposes. The paired red buildings.
I've been inside functioning NYC stables. Usually 3 stories: 1st floor for office, carriages and saddles, horse ramp to second floor with stalls, 3rd floor as a hayloft. Hole in floor of second storey to dumpster below. Perfect firetraps.
Caught a grim play about the Armenian genocide at the Atlantic Theater Co, then grabbed a very early supper at Gemma (335 Bowery St) - acceptable Italian food, great atmosphere, busy bar scene, full of happy, attractive young folks.
In fact, the East Village, the Lower East Side and Alphabet City have undergone an astonishing change in the past 10 years. It's been gentrified by throngs of youth, and they all look good. No dirty hippies or addicts there anymore, or, it seems, many people over 40.
Many horse owners, and pretty much all owners of horses of any value, purchase insurance packages including medical and death benefit.
Many companies offer it. It's a free market. See Google equine insurance.
What was most interesting to me about the topic is that all of the medical insurance is Major Medical (which I believe to be the only sensible medical insurance to buy, but increasingly scarce) and it is quite inexpensive. Why inexpensive? Because it doesn't cover birth control, poison ivy, or the sniffles.
I suppose one reason it is inexpensive is because you shoot a horse with a broken leg, which is thus an inexpensive and relatively quick procedure. However, surgery for colic can cost over $10,000. and is not reliably successful.
The NHS is well-known for letting the elderly ill pass away without care (no bullets or lethal injections yet), and Obamacare will do the same, in time.
I wish I could buy some of that inexpensive equine insurance for myself (minus the bullets unless absolutely necessary). I don't mind going to a vet instead of an MD.
Furthermore, I'd prefer a bullet or a bolt to drawn-out pain, misery, and incapacitation.
We are all weary of the drearily repetitive claims of oppression and the academic insistence on PC orthodoxy. Everybody is oppressed - especially in America. And white-colored males are oppressed by the "victims."
What is true at Bowdoin is more or less true everywhere.The power of the victims' studies departments lies not in what they say but in their ability to prevent inquiry that runs against their preferred narratives.They need not go to a lot of trouble to make this happen.They are more often like rocks in the stream.The regular flow of academic life simply goes around them.Few faculty members or administrators want the hassle of getting in their way.
Bawer's book is as vivid an account of the history, the shifting rationalizations, and the rhetoric of victims' studies as we are ever likely to have.This owes something to his insider status.An openly gay man whose 1993 book, A Place at the Table, advanced the cause for integration of gays into mainstream society, Bawer is deeply sympathetic to academic work that emphasizes the history of groups who have struggled against prejudice. Moreover, he has been a participant in some of the key debates that shaped these fields.His chapter on how "gay studies" ("a serious academic discipline") was displaced by "queer studies" (a celebration of "oppositional relation to the norm") is the centerpiece of the book.He recounts his own disputes with queer theorists such as David Halperin, who attack him for criticizing the late Michel Foucault, whose view that sex is "socially constructed" is the founding principle of queer theory.
If sex is a social construct, somebody needs to inform the birds and the bees because they did not get the memo.
Fees for services vary depending on the area of the country one inhabits.
I've been collecting some from my area of Connecticut:
- Private practice legal services, paperwork: $300-450/hr, with volume discounts and pro-rated for time - Private legal services, court time: $500-600/hr - Home health aide: $20-25/hr - Home health, Registered Nurse: $40-70/hr - Nurse Anesthetist: $200/hr - Prep and insertion of dental implant (not including the crown): $1800. for about 30-40 mins. - Veterinary check-up (dog) plus shots and lots of labs: $1200. - Independent financial/estate advisor (non-legal): $200-500/hr - Auto mechanic: $30-60/hr - Babysitter: $15-20/hr (more if more kids) - Live-in nanny: $300-400/week - Registered Dietician: $125-150/hr - Brief office visit to Internist (10-15 mins, no tests): $125 - Internist, routine "annual" physical, not including labs/tests: $600. - Short visit to Dermatologist, with minor slicing and dicing: $250 - Shrink visits: $300-400/hr (pro-rated for time) - Harpist for parties: $150-175/hr - Piper (Bagpiper): $150-175/hr - Electronics repair: $175/hr (rarely worth it nowadays) - Home computer services: $200/hr - Master carpenter: approx $50/hr, less with bigger job - Painter: approx $25-40/hr, more with bigger job? - Master gunsmith (wood or steel work): $60-80/hr - Per diem bookkeeper: $35/hr - Chimney Sweep: $175/first chimney, $125 each additional - Yard work: $100/man-day
If you wish to share fees of various services in your area, please do so in the comments.
It includes some good, friendly discussion of social equality vs. economic equality, and of economic mobility which I see as one of the wonders of American society.
Here's one bit from Voegli, speaking to Noah:
I close by remarking on your wistfulness about the absence of internal radicals or external Communists who might prod us to equalize incomes. It is in keeping with your hopes, now certainly flagging, that Occupy Wall Street would catalyze a politically irresistible redistributive movement. In your book's final sentence-"The worst thing we could do to the Great Divergence is get used to it" - you are trying to say something to the Americans indifferent to that great crusade. But perhaps they, in their reluctance to enlist, are trying to say something to you about their abiding desire for economic vigor and absolute mobility, and their abiding fears about the power and decency of redistributive government.
The average US income, per person, in 2011 was about $45,000. Make that an income cap, with anything above taxed at 100%. As a start, I suggest that this example of equality begin with Washington politicians and federal employees. It might catch on.
Why stop with income? Let's address assets too, which are much more important for economic equality. The average American's net worth in 2011 was $77,000. Let's bring the pols and bureaucrats down to that too, and take the rest away from them for equality and the Common Good. Bernanke, too, and Obama, Harry Reid, John Kerry, The Clintons, Elizabeth Warren, etc. Maybe throw in Krugman, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates just for giggles, and confiscate all trusts.
I suggest that the same apply to the owners and staff of The New Republic and The NY Times. If it requires force, so be it.
For my plan to work, obviously the government will need to set the prices of everything because otherwise nobody could afford stuff. Hey - it might just work!
...to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.
I doubt that it is widely true that young women have become the sexual exploiters and predators, but I know it is true to some extent.
I woke early on the morning of the operation and lay in bed thinking about the young mother I had operated on the previous week. I had operated on a tumour deep in the right side of her brain and somehow – I do not know how since the operation had seemed to proceed uneventfully – I had caused a major stroke, so that she awoke from the operation paralysed down the left side of her body. I had probably tried to take too much of the tumour out. I had probably strayed too deeply into her brain. I must have been too self-confident. I had been insufficiently fearful. I longed for this next operation, the operation on the pineal tumour, to go well – that there should be a happy ending, that everybody would live happily ever after, Neurosurgeons look with awe and excitement at brain scans showing pineal tumours, like mountaineers looking up at a great peak that they hope to climb. and that I could feel at peace with myself once again.
It's a wonder how many physicians are natural writers. Dr. Marsh is one.
There is plenty of motherly and grandmotherly wisdom in that book. Men used to talk about "settling down." Women need to learn how to make that happen unless their desire is to live forever like Hollywood starlets.
Here's a quote from the Amazon comments:
"Getting to I Do" catalogued various relationship scenarios, where the authors pointed out what worked and what didn't. I have to be honest, being a self-supportive "modern woman", I at first thought that the simplistic illustrations of male/female dynamics were really old-fashioned and that I might as well just talk it out with my grandmother. But, the book went way beyond just designating roles. For me it helped me to embrace the woman I was and to understand the relationship dynamic I wanted to have.
The book is terrific. I read it and applied it to my next relationship-someone I fell in love with and wanted to marry. I went through the "phases" as stated in the book and when it got down to the "negotiation" phase, my boyfriend wanted to move to France, with me. Great! But, not with an engagement. Turns out he was not ready to be married. It was a very painful to think about being without him. To have my dreams of being married to him dissolve. Fortunaltely, I had learned that I would be putting myself through so much more pain and anguish if I had up-rooted my life without any commitment other than being a great boyfriend. So, I let him go.
I've been impressed by how effective the petite 20-something blonde trainers are in encouraging middle-aged men to push to their limits during their 5 am work-outs at my gym. (I suspect the healthy-looking male trainers have a similar impact on the ladies.)
That should be no surprise, of course, given male psychology. Gyms and blonde trainers don't come cheap, however.
Even before Paul Ryan touted his enthusiasm for the Insanity program, I had been hearing about it from people (Ryan uses Insanity and P90X). I kinda like the way the woman in the Insanity ad says "I want to feel good about sharing myself with my husband for many years to come." That's a great attitude.
The problem with home work-out regimens is the self-discipline. On the other hand, challenges to self-discipline are how we build character. But, on the other hand...
Who was Herman Hollerith? His company, the Tabulating Machine Company (1890), was renamed International Business Machines in 1924. IBM, with headquarters in Armonk, NY, is currently the second-largest private employer in the US. When I was young, key punch systems were still in wide use.
There are many people who hate math but are great poker players, but there are hardly any players who lack the people reading abilities and still manage to be good poker players,” said Vonk. “Mathematical knowledge can to a large extent be replaced by intuition and experience. After a player has played a million hands of poker, even if he does not know the math at all, he will have a decent feeling about when it is profitable to draw to a flush and when it is not.”
That said, knowing the math means you can acquire this kind of knowledge much more quickly, and those skills can give an edge in very rare situations that don’t often occur in a poker game. “To be a great player, you need both!”
These elegant stone barns were the dairy operation on the Rockefeller family's Kykuit Manor estate in Pocantico Hills, NY -a charming semi-rural hamlet nestled between the remarkably named villages of Sleepy Hollow and Pleasantville, one which has probably the highest-performing public schools in NY if not in the entire USA. Also, a famous Matisse and Chagall church.
The family recently deeded 1200 acres of their pasture and woodlands to New York State as parkland, now Rockefeller State Park Preserve. It has 20 miles of scenic riding and hiking trails, many overlooking the Hudson River. The parking lot was filled with horse trailers.
This land is only 25 miles north of Manhattan, 8 miles north of White Plains in Westchester County. That's what is remarkable about it.
The stone barns area of the preserve is now operated as a demonstration organic farm (definitely not vegan - they grow their own free-range pigs, beef, chickens, lamb, turkeys and geese), and is the site of the Blue Hill Restaurant. They only cook local, and pretty much all of their food comes from their farm, year-round, like old-timey farmers. They do not make their own Coke or Scotch whiskey, however. We stopped by for a stroll and a late lunch last weekend. Blue Hill has no menu, reservations required, but their cafe is casual.
OK, I think eating local is silly and that "organic" is a foolish fad. Harmless efforts, though. I did happen to notice that the natural gas which runs their a/c is imported from out-of-state because NY still has no fracking. Same for the greenhouse heating system for winter. Local food, imported energy. Guess that passes as "green" these days.
Jeu de paume ("hand-game" or "palm game") was the handball precursor to raquet tennis. Paris' Jeu de Paume Gallery is in an old court.
"Real tennis," or "court tennis" came next. I had fun watching some pros play this on the court at Hampton Court a few years ago. There are a number of Real Tennis courts in the US, including one at the exclusive NY Raquet and Tennis Club on Park Avenue (men only).
Lawn Tennis was invented as a casual outdoor version of the wonderful game. I still prefer playing my tennis indoors: I play much better, and I cannot serve into the sun worth a damn.
Remember the Tennis Court Oath of the French Revolution? I believe that was a Court Tennis court.
Image is Jacques Louis David's Tennis Court Oath. It did not end up well because they were not Americans.
The 2011 film Machine Gun Preacher did not get wide play. It didn't play into the memes that Hollywood pumps out and unashamedly awards itself for. This is a true story of as deep a violent, ex-con, drugged man as you never want to experience finding G-d and turning his life around, and making his family proud. Right there this film crosses (if you'll pardon the expression) the effete critics who delight in films that disparage faith. However, the film further sins (again, if you'll pardon the expression) as the man finds what turns into a higher purpose for his life, fighting, yes bloody real machine gun fighting, against the savage African army of Joseph Kony that slaughters, enslaves, performs ritual murders, forces young children to participate in northern Uganda and southern Sudan. In my belief, it is more important to G-d what we do for others and how we treat others than what pieties we mouth. That is what G-d desires of us. The man, Sam Childers, hocks almost everything he has built in the US, overruling his wife and daughter's concerns for their own financial security, to build an orphanage in South Sudan, in the middle of the war zone, to shelter and protect hundreds of children and feed many hundreds more. In the process, Childers becomes disillusioned with the idea of relying on G-d to save the needy, and is adrift in figuring out how to be a man of principle and caring while having to be bloodthirsty in fighting Kony's forces. Childers finds himself coming out of this flame (again, if you'll pardon the expression) to being a decent person, at harmony with his family, and fighting as hard as ever against Kony's thugs. To my faith, that is doing G-d's will for us.
Stay watching the ending credits as Childers is totally unapologetic about what he does. For those who feel so safe that they feel they have the luxery of abhoring violence that is often necessary in the real world by real men (and women) this is the cardinal sin (yeah, again, if you'll pardon the expression). No wonder, 77% of the 108 paid-to-be-professional critics who chirp together logged at Rotten Tomatoes disliked the film, but in the real world of the over 11,000 audience members who voted at Rotten Tomatoes 63% liked the film. You can now only get it on DVD or streaming, but it'll be worth it. There is vulgarity at the start of the film, but stay tough for the tough truth in this film, people can only be safe when there are those who risk all.
Chris Cornell wrote and performed this song, The Keeper, for the movie. It's beautiful. But, don't be fooled by the clips of the film in the background. The film is not all uplifting moments. It contains much violence, including horrible brutalities upon children. Don't expect to come out of this film just uplifted but, if you have a soul and some guts, you'll be more determined to tangibly confront evil.
There is a slow, deliberate change taking place on the internet. Not all that long ago, most digital publishers offered 'free' content, focusing on the sale of ads. This model is not a good revenue generator for the majority of websites. Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal switched to a paid model, and the New York Times also has a pay wall, one which is somewhat porous. Many of the digerati feel all content on the internet can, or should be, 'free'.
The Economist is a publishing outfit which has spent much time analyzing this market and how to approach it. I have read The Economist for years and I respect their views and analysis. They recently moved to the subscriber model, as well.
Technically, most publishers are not 'free', since they use advertising to cover their costs of business. But there's a cost to you, the reader, with advertising. It's a subtle cost, one which impacts the amount of readable material and sometimes even the editorial content. The alternative, a subscriber model, is something internet users rarely encounter. For some reason, people are comfortable subscribing to magazines, newspapers, and even cable TV. Radio remains one of the few 'free' media, and even that is changing as XM/Sirius slowly becomes popular (it was included as a 'free' trial for a year with our new car). However, on the internet, it's not uncommon to hear people ask for 'free' access.
Should news and information remain 'free', and, if not, why would anyone be upset if it isn't? Many of my friends who work in the media industry have lamented the move to subscriber models. I point out a simple fact. If they were willing to pay for the paper or magazine, why wouldn't they be willing to pay for the online version? Is there some difference in the delivery system that eliminated costs?
With the new football season only a week away, I started gearing up for my fantasy leagues. I'm usually in at least one, sometimes two, because I love the science of football. I love any sport that is highly quantifiable, and football has recently begun to have more than its share of statisticians break it down.
To learn as much as I can and prepare, I've studied the game closely. The best sites I've found are Football Outsiders and Advanced NFL Stats (I'm open to more if anyone cares to share). Call them sabremetricians for football, and as Bill James' work revived my love for baseball, these people keep my enjoyment of football very high.
The real value of fantasy leagues are the communication which takes place between the participants. It tightens the bonds of friendship and improves the vibe in an office. People who once had only work in common suddenly have much to talk about.
The old saw that you don't discuss religion or politics in polite company should probably be revised to include sports. Specifically fantasy sports, but sports in general can be very messy. Many of us have had disagreements and arguments over sports. Regardless of quantifiability, the question of who the greatest players are will always be fraught with emotion rather than pure reason. Barstool logic tends to predominate these discussions.
One could say barstool logic predominates most emotionally driven discussions.
"Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will be judged by only one thing-the result."
My favorite coach of all time (many peoples' favorite), Vince Lombardi, was often called upon to share his opinions on business, politics, and religion. Vince was a devout Catholic, a very tough taskmaster, but he was known to have a heart of gold. His views on the relationship between success and work for the achievement of victory continue to resonate through the years. He was a man who took control and didn't place blame, he inspired people to perform a job.
It should be a scandal that the federal government is purposefully weakening a core principle of our value system: self-reliance. To wit, the feds are praising local bureaucrats for "counteracting" what they call "mountain pride." These bureaucrats are convincing people who characteristically reject food stamps to instead embrace a culture of dependence.
It's in the politicians' interest to grow dependency: dependency means votes. It's in the bureaucracy's interest to grow dependency: that's how they grow their "business" and make themselves necessary and important, and keep their jobs.
It's usually amusing to hear from PJ O'Rourke, but this post of his is rough on his own generation. Quotes:
America’s retreat from visible, tangible manifestations of superiority doesn’t hurt just our pride, our economy, and our place in the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s also a bad advertising campaign. America has one great product to sell, individual liberty. It’s attractive, useful, healthy, and the fate of the world depends upon it.
We are the most important and maybe the only country that fully embodies the sanctity, dignity, independence, and responsibility of each and every person. “American” is not a nationality, an ethnicity, or a culture; it’s a fact of human freedom. Our country was not created and is not governed by a ruling class or even by majority rule. America is individuals exercising their right to do what they think is best with due respect (to the extent human nature allows) for the right of all other Americans to do likewise. This is not an ideology or a system. This is a blessing.
The rest of the world would like to be so blessed. But the concept of individual liberty is harder to grasp than we Americans think. Those with little experience of liberty understand license and lawlessness better than they understand freedom. We want everyone on earth to have sanctity, dignity, independence, and responsibility. And we want everyone to want it for each other. We want this not because of our idealism but because of our selfish desire for a little more peace and plenty.
The world will never be good. People fight hard and cause a lot of trouble when commanded by their self-interest. But people fight viciously and cause ruin when commanded by the interests of others. Individual liberty is the best we can do. Try any other sociopolitical combination—collective liberty, individual oppression, communitarian despotism.
However, if we are going to promote the benefits of individual liberty, we have to show what free people can do. We need evidence to support the truths we hold to be self-evident. We have to advertise. Putting something double the size of the Burj Khalifa where the World Trade Towers once stood and building a Corvette that can top 300 mph would be a start.
Readers know that I have long rejected the notion of a college-level Liberal Arts-focused education as an economic investment. However, I have praised it as a potentially life-enhancing guided exploration more deeply into our culture and into current knowledge than secondary school can do (although good private schools can do it). "Cultivation of the mind" and all that.
Many horse owners, and pretty much all owners of horses of any value, purchase insurance packages including medical and death benefit.
Fees for services vary depending on the area of the country one inhabits.
A good book for single girls and ladies who think having a good husband might be a good idea for a good life:
I've been impressed by how effective the petite 20-something blonde trainers are in encouraging middle-aged men to push to their limits during their 5 am work-outs at my gym. (I suspect the healthy-looking male trainers have a similar impact on the ladies.)
This is just the conclusion of Robert Pinsky's long poem (1975) Essays on Psychiatrists (h/t, 
It's about Americans who have 
It's usually amusing to hear from PJ O'Rourke, but