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.
Even assuming a full recovery from the Great Recession—possible, though not certain—the resulting prosperity will be qualified by greater competition for scarce economic resources. Massive federal budget deficits are only the most conspicuous sign of a society that has promised itself more than it can afford. To resurrect a familiar metaphor: A more slowly growing economic pie will face more claimants for slices. Some will receive bigger slices, others smaller.
Another:
The premise of the post–World War II affluent society, that we were or would soon become so rich that we could afford almost anything, was never true, but we often acted as if it were. We avoided unpleasant choices, especially in government, accepting routine federal budget deficits (46 out of 51 years since 1961). Now, limits are painfully evident. There are more promises than can be fulfilled. Meeting all of government’s spending commitments would require higher, broad-based taxes, which both liberals and conservatives reject, or perpetually large deficits, which both parties consider unsustainable and undesirable.
What looms is a future of more distributional struggles between young and old, rich and poor, different regions, and many interest groups. Each will defend subsidies, work to avoid tax increases, and maneuver for regulatory advantage.
The entire piece is worth studying. There are lots of people out there, young and older, who could be doing much more right now were it not for the Administration's horribly misguided responses to the recession.
I've been busy the last few days with management meetings, mostly running from office to office and keeping people happy. However, there was a full day off-site meeting recently on the 44th floor of a relatively new high-rise on 57th Street. We had the entire floor to ourselves, and before the meetings got underway, I walked around and snapped a few pictures. Here's one:
A good view of the Hudson, Jersey City in the distance, down 8th Avenue from 57th. As I snapped this, I noticed several other people in the room doing the same thing. I laughed, and commented, "Isn't it strange, we've all lived in the New York area for years, we've been in so many skyscrapers, and here we are taking pictures?" One woman, who lives in Manhattan, replied "Yes, but you need to do this to remind yourself just how special it is sometimes. We tend to take it for granted." I agree. We don't usually stop to enjoy what we've got available to us.
The authors of the book in question believe that happiness comes from not working. That seems kind of strange, because I always felt that the foundation of happiness came from being useful and productive. A quote from the review:
The authors offer suggestions for how to change the balance between work and leisure. First, everyone should receive either a wage from the government (with no obligation to work to earn it) generous enough to enable him to work only part time, or a capital endowment at birth; the risk of people squandering their endowment in “riotous living can be reduced by limiting their spending to approved objects (such as education)”; in addition, the schools would educate people for leisure. Second, they recommend imposing a progressive consumption tax, to make consumer products more costly in the hope of discouraging people from working hard to be able to afford them (it could of course make them work even harder). Third, firms should be forbidden to deduct advertising expenditures from taxable income, since advertising encourages consumption.
But here is the oddest thing about the book: There is virtually no discussion of how people, their incomes halved, might be expected to employ the vastly greater leisure that the authors want them to have.
Don't ya love those would-be utopian societal planners? The authors of the book must live in some alternate universe. We can't all be Michelangelos, nor would most people decide to be.
...nowadays there is a new science of happiness, and some of the psychologists and almost all the economists involved want you to think that happiness is just pleasure. Further, they propose to calculate your happiness, by asking you where you fall on a three-point scale, 1-2-3: “not too happy,” “pretty happy,” “very happy.” They then want to move to technical manipulations of the numbers, showing that you, too, can be “happy,” if you will but let the psychologists and the economists show you (and the government) how.
On a long view, understand, it is only recently that we have been guiltlessly obsessed with either pleasure or happiness. In secular traditions, such as the Greek or the Chinese, a pleasuring version of happiness is downplayed, at any rate in high theory, in favor of political or philosophical insight. The ancient Chinese sage Zhuangzi observed of some goldfish in a pond, “See how happy they are!” A companion replied, “How do you know they are happy?” Zhuangzi: “How do you know I don’t know?” In Christianity, for most of its history, the treasure, not pleasure, was to be stored up in heaven, not down here where thieves break in. After all, as a pre-eighteenth-century theologian would put it—or as a modern and mathematical economist would, too—an infinite afterlife was infinitely to be preferred to any finite pleasure attainable in earthly life.
And
Ominously... happiness studies have been diverted into an applied science. The happiness measurers very much want to direct us and are itching to engineer a happy society. They do not know what they are talking about, but are very willing to put “policies” about it into practice anyway. In a finely argued but erroneous book of philosophy, for example, Daniel Haybron a few years ago made a case partly on the basis of the new science of happiness against what he calls “liberal optimism,” or the belief since the eudaemonic movement and the bourgeois revaluations of the eighteenth century that “people tend to fare best—and pretty well at that—when empowered to shape their [own] lives.” He doubts it. But on what basis, since psychology is singularly ill-equipped to yield such doubt? As Haybron himself points out, tests on college kids do not range across enough experience. History is more to the point. Of course people make mistakes about their lives, and sometimes spend their lives badly. But as even Haybron acknowledges, the liberal experiment since 1700 has yielded gigantically better lives in every sense for a constantly increasing number of us. Haybron, and many of the elite critics of how other people spend their time on Earth, is an admitted pastoralist and disdains the sick hurry of modern life. Yet is he himself not living a happy life, which his ancestor around 1800—who in any case died in childhood and childbirth—did not?
It's a major essay. As I have said here many times, "happiness" cannot be defined in an applicable way beyond simple-minded gratification, but unhappiness is easy to recognize. It's everywhere.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy studied "How America Gives." One of the study's charts shows a remarkable difference: "Red states are more generous than blue states. The eight states where residents gave the highest share of income to charity went for John McCain in 2008. The seven-lowest ranking states supported Barack Obama."
Yankee Northeasterners are cheapskates: "In states like Utah and Mississippi, the typical household gives more than 7 percent of its income to charity, while the average household in Massachusetts and three other New England states gives less than 3 percent."
What's the bottom-line?: "The reasons for the discrepancies among states, cities, neighborhoods are rooted in part in each area’s political philosophy about the role of government versus charity."
"The narcissism of small differences" was Freud's 1917 term for his observation that people with minor differences between them can be more combative and hateful than those with major differences. It is a handy concept.
He viewed this as a narcissistic issue because the distress comes from looking in the mirror, as it were, and seeing a pimple.
What it is about is that we want all of "us" to think exactly like us - that is, perfectly, and the "others" be damned - who cares? Until the "others" give us big trouble.
Freud's psychoanalytic "movement" was repeatedly fractured by such things. Pioneers advanced into the human unconscious, and focused on different aspects, and fought and lost friendships over it. In the end, Freud was usually correct, because he had the courage to tell the often-unpleasant, unpopular, and uncivilized truths about deep human nature.
Of course, the narcissism of small differences often applies to politics. But my best joke on the subject concerns religion:
I was walking across a bridge one sunny day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: 'Stop. Don't do it.' 'Why shouldn't I?' he asked. 'Well, there's so much to live for!' 'Like what?' 'Are you religious?' He said: 'Yes.' I said. 'Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?' 'Christian.' 'Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?'' 'Protestant.' 'Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?' 'Baptist.' 'Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?' 'Baptist Church of God.' 'Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?' 'Reformed Baptist Church of God.' 'Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?' He said: 'Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915.' I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off the bridge.
Like Animal Farm's Boxer, the American workhorse has worked itself to the bone, paying taxes on everything imaginable to subsidize the revolutionary state of the left, its mammoth bureaucracies and the bribes and favors that it doles out to its voting bases. Homes have been lost, lives shattered and families broken up so that America might "live up to" whatever promises the left has made to itself on their behalf. And like Boxer, the American and his way of life, is being taken away in a knacker's van billed as a trip to the veterinarian.
The left has forcefully accelerated the death throes of the American mule by pushing government spending beyond anything that the horse can cover. That leaves the overworked horse with only two options. It can either become a donkey and be fed and work without any say in what it is fed or how it works, or it can try to break free of the great socialist boneyard.
His essay/post summarizes many or most of the Maggie's political concerns about America. The government is making it too difficult to be a mule, but it is the mule who pulls their electoral wagon and pays their bills.
You don't need to open a restaurant. You can be a seafood farm entrepreneur.
Natural marshes no longer support the markets for Littleneck Clams and Atlantic Oysters - especially the delicious Wellfleets. These tasty mollusks have to be farmed, but it's not very hard work.
You buy the seed from a clam or oyster nursery, protect them from gulls and whelks, and harvest them at low tide in your pick-up truck as the orders come in. You plant them, nature grows them on plankton. Sometimes you have to rake mud off the oyster bins.
The small producer I chatted with out on the flats at low tide has around 1,000,000 clams growing right now, at various stages of development. These are 30 cents each, wholesale.
He has around 500,000 Wellfleet Oysters growing, at around 70 cents each, wholesale. That's a nice little inventory, but a bad hurricane or winter storm can obliterate your investment so it is best to save your profits for hard times. That is intelligent, no matter what you do for a living. I don't think you can buy insurance for clam beds or most other sorts of income.
In his spare time, he was a three-term First Selectman of Wellfleet "until he finished what he wanted to get done," as a local friend said. It's always wonderful to me to see how unskilled Americans without any higher ed can find good ways to make a living.
Cranky, laconic old Cape Codder. I said I was curious about how he did this, and he replied "I don't know. Been doing this for 50 years. I still don't know what I am doing" as he lit up a fresh Marlboro.
Those orange mats on the right are what they protect the baby clams with. Clams live in the mud. Each year, new seed clams to burrow in the mud under a new mat. Usually harvestable in 3 years.
The oysters grow in the wire bins. Those beehive cannisters collect oyster larvae, to reduce his costs of buying seed oysters.
Shellfish guys out on the flats with their trucks at low tide in Wellfleet Harbor. The most difficult barrier to entry in this line of work is obtaining rights to areas of mudflat. Waterfront landowners own the flats out to 200 yards.
Do you ever feel the need to confess your sins? To confess them to somebody else, other than in prayer or ritually in church (as in "Forgive us our trespasses")?
It is difficult in life to live without accumulating one's share of sins of commission, omission, sins of character, sins of unkindness, sins of arrogance, sins of self-centeredness, sins of cruelty, sins of self-indulgence, lies, thefts, personal flaws and weaknesses, and sins of passion or stupidity. These things burden our souls.
Pastor says "Lay it all at the foot of the Cross," and quotes Christ: “Go, and sin no more.”
People with serious religious aspirations often engage Spiritual Directors as guides. That's a serious and daunting business but I have heard that it can be a life-changing journey.
Do our readers sometimes feel the need to confess and, if so, to whom?
Over 50-years ago, my Bar Mitzvah was in a small, poor Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn. The training was by rote and the surroundings were typical of the Diaspora, what my Grandparents built in the freedoms of the US but, still, seemingly far removed from the deepest meaning for a young boy.
Since my eldest son was born, I’ve been determined that he experience and understand much more that he could carry through life. His Jewish education has been far more enriched. I’ve saved my airline miles since then, and next April, right after Passover, our family is going to Israel for Jason’s Bar Mitzvah. It will be on the Haas Promenade overlooking Jerusalem, where one can see its history and present. We’ll be traveling all over Israel for the next two-weeks, its wondrous and even miraculous diversity and beauties, several thousand years of history side-by-side with one of the world’s most advanced countries built with blood, sweat, tears, courage, and brains.
I made such a trip in my 40s and it changed and enriched my life. That’s my prayer and gift to Jason for his Bar Mitzvah.
This video captures some of that, in English, Jerusalem Of Gold, the third verse:
But as I sing to you, my city, And you with crowns adorn, I am the least of all your children, Of all the poets born. Your name will scorch my lips for ever, Like a seraph's kiss, I'm told, If I forget thee, golden city Jerusalem of gold.
Chorus
Oh, Jerusalem of gold, and of light and of bronze, I am the lute for all your songs.
It's the best stone- and brick-cleaner, but it has to be handled carefully. I am cleaning a hearth with it.
When you buy it, buy goggles and gloves. It's actually a solution of hydrochoric acid - same thing your stomach is full of.
You can't let it near bleach - the combo produces chlorine gas which will kill you. So it is fun to use. You really do not want it on your skin either.
In case you're looking for some lightweight Sunday fun, I added four horrific disaster vids to my Special Vids page yesterday:
Crossroads — Two airliners defy all odds and collide in mid-air. What makes it interesting is that it wasn't the usual faulty part or pilot error this time around. It was cultural.
Flying On Empty — As much as I like powered flight, I like the concept of gliding even more. The fact that this particular glider weighs 264,000 pounds just makes it all the more fun.
The Gimli Glider — Speaking of 264,000-pound gliders, do you know what 'slipping' an airplane is? It's a little hard to describe. Try "flying sideways — on purpose." See picture below. According to the vid, this was the first time an airliner without power had ever gone into such a heavy slip during a landing. And survived.
Mistaken Identity — Okay, so how does one of the most modern warships in the U.S. Navy mistake a gigantic civilian airliner for a twenty-times-tinier, ten-times-quicker enemy jet fighter and shoot it down?
Damn good question.
Home site is here, art gallery is here, Special Vids page is here. Enjoy!
This airliner is coming directly at you — sideways
Eastham, Wellfleet, and Truro aren't fancy. At least, they are not pretentious or social-climbing summer colonies. Nobody wears red pants or pants with whales on them, and even the rich folks inhabit very humble dwellings. Unlike the islands (Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket), you do not have to spend $10,000/week for summer rentals.
Nevertheless, tons of good fun family-friendly seafood restaurants, and lots of live music at night. It's altogether cheerful and jolly, full of happy, sunburned, and mostly attractive, fit, modest, and presentable folks (ie it ain't Snooki's Jersey Shore). Just right for me.
As much as I love the Farm in the Berkshire countryside, in the summer the sand and salt and piney woods and cheerful people and chilly water and seafood suit me best. Always will have a hold on my heart.
This old fishing and shipping village was in its heyday in the 1870s, when the train came through town. I believe this building began its life as a salt cod and shellfish warehouse - reader corrected me - a Lorenzo Dow Baker banana warehouse:
Mrs. BD and I listen to Teaching Company cds in the car. Well, it's called "Great Courses" now.
Best college course I ever sat in on is Bob Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. It's on sale now. I cannot express how absorbing and wonderful he is to listen to. It's life-changing, even for somebody musically-disabled like me.
Handel wrote Messiah - 50 gem-like and unforgettable tunes - in 24 days.
School education isn't everything in life. There are many important things to know that cannot be learned in school. As parents, we all try to ensure that our kids acquire basic life skills to help them enjoy life and to participate fully in life.
What makes life interesting is that all parents have different ideas about this.
Here's my first stab at making a list of the things we have expected our kids to know how to do - or at least to give it a good try - before turning 18 (guys and gals):
- Handle firearms safely - Ride and groom a horse - Play a musical instrument and sight-read - Achieve some level of competence with at least one sport which can be played throughout life - Learn CPR, and basic lifesaving, water safety, and mastery of basic swimming strokes - Handle a sailboat and a powerboat with at least basic safety and effectiveness - Display appealing and engaging table and cocktail party manners - Strong familiarity with our religion - whether they believe or not - Manage their own money safely, and learn how to save it - Internalize our (sub-) cultural codes of conduct, from dress codes to effective job interviewing - How to prune trees, hedges, and shrubs - How to cook a good number of basic foods - How to cut, split, and stack firewood - and for boys, chain saw expertise - How to start a fire - How to (try to) catch fish and shoot a duck or pheasant. And clean them, too. - How to handle a tractor safely on New England hills - Row a boat, paddle a canoe - How to identify at least basic plants, wildlife, habitat types, and rock formations - How to travel in foreign countries - Vegetable gardening - Drive a standard transmission vehicle, change the oil, check the anti-freeze, inflate tires - At least basic understanding of household basics like painting, power tools, hammers and screw-drivers, making cement, etc. - Know the basic laws, and how not to break them - Know how not to get lost in the woods, and use of a compass - How to select friends - How to be an informed citizen and to participate in one's community
That's a start. I know that some of it is somewhat culture-specific to our lives, but it seems to me that all of these would come in handy for anybody.
I had a chat with the owner of this Sakonnet 23, moored on the tidal flats in Wellfleet Harbor. In fact, I swam out to the mooring to see her up close and to chat with him one day last week when he was getting ready to go out for a sail. I was attracted to the classic, double-ender lines, and figured her to be a repro of an antique. Nope.
Here she is at low tide. That's a 1000 lb. half-keel. I think it's cool the way she stands on the keel when the tide goes out, holding the rudder out of danger.
Below the fold, pics of two of the most common Cape Cod boats -
She begins her post with this: "'The universe is made of stories, not atoms', poet Muriel Rukeyser famously remarked."
It's true enough to be a truism. We live by stories, in stories, telling stories.
Furthermore, atoms are stories too.
A simple ring supposedly owned by Jane Austen recently sold at auction for $236,000. Its value without the story? Probably a couple of hundred bucks. It's just as easy to think of stories which detract from value, eg the value of Jeffrey Dahmer's house.
It's been a bit over a week since the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, and I haven't seen much on Maggie's about them. I really enjoy the Olympics. The Opening Ceremony is always great entertainment, and the events capture my attention. I've found myself watching handball, water polo, and even men's field hockey. I enjoy sports, and there's something about the Olympic Spirit that captures me. But there's always a portion which bothers me.
It used to be the overcommercialization which bugged me. I've grown used to this. I knew the 'amateur' status we used to try and pretend existed wouldn't last. It was clear that money would eventually be the driving force. In some ways, this has made the competition better. The athletes still play for pride, but now they can also get a payday. Nothing wrong with that.
On the other hand, the politicization, which was bad in Cold War years, has taken a subtle turn. There is still a semblance of competing ideologies. But there is also the use of spectacle to make some kind of statement, using the commercial aspect to push a separate agenda.
What I want is six legal laborers (easily to be gotten around here at 7 am on a Saturday) for 8 hours, armed with my chain saws, my mighty brush-wacker, wood-chipper, a soil tiller, trimmers, garden tools, root poisons, grass seed, and a truckload of mulch.
In one hard day, with me and the lad working hard and happily alongside, I think we could restore the immediate surrounds of the Maggie's HQ to pristine elegance. I do all I can on my own, but some jobs are more than I can handle in the time I have. Lots of rocks and evil vines.
It's a bitch of a job, but many hands make light work and labor is satisfying especially with many hands on board.
Will provide excellent and abundant take-out Mexican lunch for all. Beer with limes after the job is done. Payment in cash, of course, as is customary. The rate here is $100/day, and these guys work hard.
In the fall, I will also have some heavy-duty transplanting to be done but it's not the size of job that this one is.
Being a natural-born, many-generational New England Yankee, I have to confess that I have disdain for "relaxation." Engagement with life can be passive or energetic.
Don't blame me: it's my culture. We must respect different cultures, and Yankees value effort.
Over the years, I have come to realize (slow-learner that I am) that energy level is a major determinant of success in pursuing one's goals. IQ? Not overly important. Physical appearance? Important only at the margins although being tall does help. Education? A slight edge up, but only for your first job.
Here's how I assess peoples' level of life vigor:
1. Play computer games? Low vigor by definition
2. Watch over 1 hr. of TV/day? Low vigor
3. Read at least book per week? Good mental vigor
4. Read Maggie's Farm daily? Good mental vigor
5. Play sports instead of watching sports? High vigor
6. Make music instead of listening to music? High vigor
7. Exercise daily above and beyond walking (or hold down a physical job)? High vigor
8. Work under 60 hrs/week? Low vigor
9. Sleep after 6 am? Low vigor
10 Live on takeout instead of home-cooked? Low vigor
I need to work on this and produce a copyrighted "Vigor Score." I'll get rich off of it, and annoy millions in the process.
The authors of the book in question believe that happiness comes from not working. That seems kind of strange, because I always felt that the foundation of happiness came from being useful and productive. A quote 
Deirdre McCloskey on 
"The narcissism of small differences" was Freud's 
The death of the American mule.
A simple ring supposedly owned by Jane Austen recently 
