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.
It's been a giant cultural change in medicine. Half of medical students are women these days. Many of them are Asians.
Today, college men are beginning to consider it to be a chick profession. Including cardio-thoracic surgery. Heck, I even know a lady urologist in Boston. Why not?
Many of the young women I know are going into Emergency Medicine. If you walk into your local ER, you will see if full of cute young ER MDs. Women going into medicine today tend towards the areas where they can work definite hours for a paycheck, work part-time, and have no on-call duties. ER, Radiology, Dermatology. They want a regular paycheck, benefits, and regular hours, and do not want the burdens, stress, and risks of opening a private practice. And, as as a gender, I think we tend to be more comfortable with rules and protocols than men and thus make better employees. Male docs hate rules and enjoy defying them.
The culture of medicine is changing, for better or worse. The older male docs will say, in confidence, that medicine is becoming "pussified." Their old school view is that medical practice is not meant to be either convenient, comfortable, or a partial dedication, but rather more like a priesthood.
Worse case, I can see a future of salaried docs happy to be working in government clinics. You patients will not like that.
I grew up in my working class neighborhood with friends of different races, ethnic backgrounds, religions, and sexual orientations. Although there were stereotypes and jokes that, in retrospect, are embarrassing, we all talked openly and understood each other. That bred mutual respect and defense of each’s rights to fair treatment based on merit, whether socially, in school, jobs or sports. We carried that into our adult lives and actions.
Inside Higher Ed, respectfully liberal, published the results of a study of college students’ attitude toward the question, "How important to you personally is helping to promote racial understanding?" To the researchers’ surprise, it became less important as the students went from freshmen to seniors, and that finding held across races. The conclusion as to Backwards on Racial Understanding:
"These findings cast doubt on research and conventional wisdom that argues for the liberalizing effects of higher education on racial attitudes. Instead, it suggests that, for some students, negative experiences with diversity may dampen the relatively progressive racial views they hold when entering college," write the authors in their conclusion.
Look at the right side of the linked page for some job listings for “diversity” positions at colleges. Multiply. Such positions are the fastest growing category of jobs at campuses.
Preaching “multiculturalism” but not practicing it due to allowing and encouraging narrow campus “victimology” groups’ vituperance aimed at other groups and their shouting down or criminalizing contrary ideas may stifle but, at the same time creates resentment and dislike. The actual experience for many students is the noted reduction in commitment to promoting racial understanding.
The study does indicate that having friends of different races and ideas does increase mutual understanding and engagement in promoting racial understanding. That is often referred to as civil discussion. That is increasingly difficult to accomplish on campuses where division and extremist challenges are common and defended by “diversity” ideology that promotes division and protects extremism.
College is the beginning for most students of competition to rise in society. If the rules absorbed are that one must be defensive, instead of mutually supportive, then no wonder commitment to promoting racial understanding declines. As merit of behavior and argument is given second place behind relativistic notions, justice is reduced and society’s future leaders become hypocrites mouthing multicultural platitudes but practicing defensive seperateness.
Melissa Keith, also of KSU, continued the anti-West, anti-imperialist theme by recycling 1970s feminist theory in her paper titled, "Defining the Erotic Mystical Global Paradigm: From Inanna to the Bhagavad-Gita to Audre Lorde." The feminist discovery of the "wild" (thanks to Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Judy Grahn) dismantled the archetypical story of the West, that of the hero, with God as the patriarch. Lorde's rescuing of the "erotic" from its association with the "pornographic" and overturning--again--the old "dualities" of spirit over nature, was enthusiastically hailed. "Reclaiming" and "renaming" private body parts (this was soon after the Vagina Monologues season, after all) leads to staking out "intellectual space." As for implementation, Keith said teaching the explicit poetry of Judy Grahn in a small class of "mature" students provides "quite an amazing experience."
I first went to Las Vegas in 1954. Somewhere in my garage are the black-and-white photos I took with my Kodak Brownie. We stayed at the TravelLodge on the Strip, where the Imperial Palace now stands. The Strip ended a short way south from there. Most hotels had a Western theme. Downtown, there was only the Golden Nugget and Fitzgeralds, now the Fremont Experience of lights and tacky. After 5PM, men wore suits or sport jackets, women wore cocktail dresses. Dinner and a show, with top headliners, was $10. All-you-can-eat Prime Rib was $1.99. Gorgeous women in skimpy outfits served free drinks to gamblers. Pit bosses gave free decks of used cards to kids. When my poor family in Detroit migrated to LA in the 1930s, my trusting great-uncle Sam was suckered out of a week's wages, a few dollars, for a tiny parcel of desert land. In the mid-'60s, he got twenty-thousand dollars for it, equal then to two-years of middle-class salary, where the Luxor now stands. For twenty-years I stayed at the Desert Inn, until it was the last of traditional, classy Las Vegas, and haven't returned for 17-years.
Now? Don't ask. OK, I'll tell you anyway. The hotels are humongous and glitzy and expensive. Almost everyone is in jeans and shorts and T-shirts. Has-been shows cost a small fortune. Buffets are $15-$30. There are half as many cocktail waitresses and, really, most are 40-70 years old. One moved so slow, we looked around for her walker. (The pretty young things are off-Strip, like at the Rio.) Used decks of cards have to be bought for $5 or more. Corporate Las Vegas squeezes every penny of costs and dollars out of tourists. Fortunately, always being with my pesky, wandering boys, and my eagle-eyed wife, probably saved several thousand dollars, as I never escaped to the tables.
The family and I spent the past week in Las Vegas. Most visitors don't get far from the Strip, but if they did they'd see some knockout scenery.
Before leaving, Gavin blew away the track at his Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.
On the drive to Las Vegas, we stopped in a great '50s diner, Penny's in Barstow, then went over to the Railroad Museum showing some of the trains from Barstow's rail hub history.
On the way back to the highway, we stopped for this memorial to the New York Fire Department heroes who perished in 9-11.
Several years ago, my wife purchased a gift card as a Christmas present for my parents. It was for a meal at Rat's Restaurant on the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ. My parents used the card 2 years ago, they have since returned twice. Their third visit was two weekends ago, and we joined them. Unfortunately, some personal issues limited our time on the grounds prior to dinner, but for 45 minutes we wandered among the artwork. What we saw was impressive and enjoyable.
The Grounds for Sculpture opened in 1992, the vision of J. Seward Johnson (of the Johnson & Johnson family). He took 42 acres, formerly the NJ State Fairgrounds, and transformed it into part botanical garden and part sculpture garden and museum. Johnson creates some of the work, though most is provided by other artists. It is an eclectic mix of styles, designed to fit within the existing environment, although at times the environment is altered slightly to work with the art.
In 1984, J. Seward Johnson, sculptor and philanthropist, envisioned a public sculpture garden and museum in Hamilton, NJ. His desire was to make contemporary sculpture as an art form more accessible and to offer people from all backgrounds the opportunity to become comfortable with contemporary art. Grounds For Sculpture was conceived as a place where audiences could experience sculpture in a familiar, accessible, and informal setting.
Glenn Reynolds, with his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, captured something yesterday that I had been collecting a few links about, in Faith in science? Why skepticism is rising. A quote:
...while one should trust science as a method — honestly done, science remains the best way at getting to the truth on a wide range of factual matters — there’s no particular reason why one should trust scientists and especially no particular reason why one should trust the people running scientific institutions, who often aren’t scientists themselves.
In fact, the very core of the scientific method is supposed to be skepticism. We accept arguments not because they come from people in authority but because they can be proven correct — in independent experiments by independent experimenters. If you make a claim that can’t be proven false in an independent experiment, you’re not really making a scientific claim at all.
And saying, “trust us,” while denouncing skeptics as — horror of horrors — “skeptics” doesn’t count as science, either, even if it comes from someone with a doctorate and a lab coat.
There are a number of reasons it makes good sense to be always skeptical of scientific claims (as scientists are trained to be). Here are a few:
1. Careerism and greed - there is big money to be made in science these days, especially if you come up with the "right" results 2. The use of computers for data-mining - which is not the scientific method 3. The reluctance of journals to publish negative results in favor of positive results 4. The lack of scientific literacy in journalism 5. The impression that scientists often have an ax to grind and cannot be impartial about their pet ideas
There are others. Those are just for starters.
Without getting into the huge global climate boondoggle, here are just a few examples from my medical profession:
On Tuesday, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences heard testimony that the number of scientific papers that had to be retracted increased more than tenfold over the last decade; the number of journal articles published rose only 44 percent.
Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, speaking to the panel, said he blamed a hypercompetitive academic environment that fosters poor science and even fraud, as too many researchers compete for diminishing funding.
"The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high-profile journal," said Fang. "This is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior."
44% is not very good. More on that story: Can Most Cancer Research Be Trusted? - Addressing the problem of "academic risk" in biomedical research
A pal of Mrs. BD was astonished that Mrs. BD was not a Downton Abbey follower, so she obtained the 2010-2011 episodes.
I watched the first episode. It's an Upstairs, Downstairs-like drama, beautiful to look at, but perhaps more of a chick thing. Maggie Smith is great. The BD daughter would say "perfect production values."
Perhaps it's about nostalgia for the Britain of the past, comfortable warts and all.
Obama claims that free-market capitalism doesn't work. Some retort that it has not been tried lately. Obama certainly never tried it (except with his ghost-written books), but I tried it. Easy to do. Here's how I joined the 1% and got filthy rich in the intertunnel through the miracle of free-market Capitalism (with good tips for other bloggers and website owners):
- Dunkin Donuts pays me $100 k per year for publicity. That's a good deal for them. Plus I get free coffee and jelly donuts, like the cops do.
- Bob Dylan pays me around $100 k per year for free publicity, plus free concert tix. Don't care much for his musical efforts, but the money's good and my kids appreciate the tix. OK, OK, he does have some decent lyrics
- Best Nest offers $1000 per link up to four per year, but also sends me free stuff. I have bird houses coming out of my ears. Ouch. Splinters. They need better sanders.
- D'Artagnan compensates us with $500 of their wonderful produce per link
- my contract with Amazon pays me a paltry $500 per book or item link.
- Sippican pays me $600 per link, limited to 1/month. I would try to squeeze more out of the guy, but I like him and his family so I don't. Pays me double for each Rumford Meteor link - best little newspaper in Maine.
- Brooks Brothers pays me $10,000 for one annual advt., plus one free three-hour shopping spree during their January sale and a bonus for each additional link. What do I need the clothes for? I live in my Brooks Brothers pajamas...and I never go outdoors. There are bears out there.
- Costco pays me $4000 per mention. Cheap SOBs. Evil big business taking advantage of us toilers.
- Don Surber's paper pays us a lousy $75 per link, which is why I link Surber so often - I have to make it on volume or the invoice is hardly worth the stamp! He's pretty good, though, so it's OK despite his liberal slant. Gateway Pundit pays better, per link. Insty doesn't pay a penny, so I hate to link the darn guy. Vanderleun, TigerHawk, Mead, Theo - too holy and pure, or too cheap - to put up the necessary, but our persuasive VP of Sales will visit them again soon for cocktails and dinner at the truck stop lounge of their choice. As for Zero Hedge - he pays us double what we ask for but in the currency of his choice. Filthy Capitalist. Obama needs to raise his taxes.
- Home Depot pays us $8,000 per linked mention, limited to 3/year. Nice check, but always arrives late. I still have to pay when I get stuff there.
- Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce: $750 per Cape Cod photo posted. I have lots of Cape Cod photos, so they limited me to one per month
- What do I get from Big Oil and Big Gas for pretending to be a climate skeptic? My contract with those good old boys prevents me from making the details public but I can say that it is a satisfactory arrangement for now. Plus they fly me down private to Texas and treat me to bird or pig hunts and barbecue anytime I am free. Sent me a custom cast-iron smoker too. Not as good a deal as Anthony Watts gets, but not bad at all.
- Exploitation of workers: I pay our eager contributors nothing (suckers). I am a tough negotiator. My plan for 2012 is to begin to charge themper wordfor each post. After all, our virtual ink and paper costs are going up, as are duct tape costs to hold our servers together - not to mention Obamacare for our elves and farm hands and the rapidly-increasing cost of paying Google to keep us on the top of "Maggie's" searches.
OK. That makes for a profitable day thus far. Heck, everybody has to make a living somehow, and a little extry comes in handy (the girls all want Loro Piana and Anne Fontaine stuff for their birthdays as I am sure your girls do too - there's two more quick n' easy payola ka-chings for me!). Please patronize our benefactors, and assume that every link we provide is paid for in some manner. I don't have time to list all of the rest of the good payola and kickbacks I benefit from at Maggie's, but it is enough to keep my banker on Grand Cayman busy processing the check and (preferably) Fed-Exed cash payments.
All it takes for website success is a good, sweet-talkin' VP of Sales with an appealing product and who just likes to have fun - and thanks for the check, John Deere:
Besides "social media," it's interesting to me how others keep in touch with their old friends, how they reach out and make new friends, and, in general, how they keep their interpersonal lives alive, vibrant, and stimulating.
Readers know that I like to host parties at home, both formal and informal. Even if it isn't a time to have deep, intimate conversations as one does in other settings like in restaurants or clubs, it's a way of letting people know that that you view them as a part of your life that matters. That is an important signal to send to people (assuming that they care).
I know the Bird Dogs like to host formal dinners, and especially big semi-formal multi-course game dinners for 25-30, but that sounds like work to me. Sounds like a holiday effort, but they seem to be used to doing it joyfully and without much expense, and take it in stride.
At my house, we are partial to hosting semi-stuffy formal dinners for 12 at least monthly from October to March (why else have a formal dining room?), and casual family clambakes, barbecues, pig roasts, or the like in the summertime. Sometimes in the winter it is good to host a decadent after-church brunch with champagne and bloodies, with a guy making omelettes to order, and bacon n' sausage n' pancakes. A big brunch at home is not an expensive party, and people love to come in the winter for good cheer with the fireplaces blazing. People have been known to get good new jobs at our get-togethers.
Every few years, I think it's a good idea to find an excuse to throw a big cocktail party or Christmas party and cast a wide net of hospitality. Inviting people into your home, however humble, means a lot to people. Doing those things right, of course, can be a little bit costly but makes life much more fun.
I enjoy people. If I don't do it, who will?
Friends of ours, recent empty-nesters, have come up with another idea which I like. They term it "Suppertime." Once a week, they just call a couple to join them for an ordinary supper on the kitchen table after work. A cocktail by the fire first, of course. Nothing fancy, no big deal, just a visit for an hour or two at most. Salad and spaghetti, or a grilled ribeye and mashed potatoes, or whatever, and some fruit for dessert.
The other day, a woman walked into a mall. She visited several stores, among them Macy's, Starbucks, Nordstrom's, an interior design shop, a paint store, and finally the Apple store.
She didn't buy in each one, but in cases where she did, she gave quite a bit of information about herself to the store in order to make her purchase. In fact, she gave quite a bit of information to each store and she didn't realize it. It wasn't long before she was inundated with coupons, offers, ideas for purchase, calendar of sales, and various other items related to her trip to the mall. It was as if she returned to her car and found all this under her windshield wiper. These coupons and offers were from the stores she visited, but from other stores that offered the same or similar products. At first she wondered, "Is someone following me?" At that point, her smartphone buzzed, and she had an email. Target was letting her know there was a sale on dresses from a designer she had recently purchased.
The mall the woman walked into was the internet, and there was somebody following her. But that somebody wasn't just one person. It was a large number of people. Faceless, nameless people collecting data on sites she visited so they could tell what she was interested in from her clicking, what online stores she visited, on her purchase decisions, whether she got to that store by clicking on an ad, as well as other data points. If this had happened in real life, as described above, how would you react? Certainly there are laws against this, you'd think? Not really. If I chose to sit in the mall and just pay attention to where you went, then visited each store to peek and see what you purchased, and then leave coupons on your car, you are limited in your ability to stop me. Laws exist to prevent stalking, but if I'm sneaky enough, you may never even notice me.
As I mentioned a while ago, there isn't much Medieval to see in northern Italy except for some churches and monasteries, and some fortifications.
The wealth and urban renewal during the Renaissance is the reason. The narrow roads and alleys are often of medieval origin, but the old buildings are pretty much all Renaissance or later.
We did find one Medieval-era home in Orta San Guilio a couple of years ago (we drove our tiny rental over the mountains from Stresa for a day trip. I don't know how the lad fit his long legs into the back seat of that tin can, but he will put up with anything to explore new places):
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.
I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, in this fashion: "This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?"
No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?
I would say that if you can understand every detail of the Wiki piece on old Mr. Sun, your basic, math-free science is in fairly good shape.
I did not know that the sun, with its Solar System, orbits about the center of the Milky Way galaxy at approximately 251 km/second. We are racing around our galaxy which is, in turn, racing through space at somewhere between 100 and 600 km/second.
In youth, one needs and wants stuff: a roof over one's head, maybe a spouse, transportation, some domestic machines and comforts, recreational toys (guns, tennis raquets, boats, speakers, etc), appropriate clothing, and decent schools for your kids.
In midlife, one begins to hunger for an accumulation of life experiences - or at least I do. I haven't wanted any stuff for years except maybe good cigars, good food at good restaurants, interesting beers, books, and Teaching Company CDs. I buy nothing else anymore - not even an iPad. Well, I did need to replace a couple of computers recently, and it did not go very well. I guess I'd buy more art if I had money to burn, because I look to look at pictures.
My skis are 12 years old, as are my ski boots.
I do not say this from some sort of moral or anti-materialistic standpoint; it's just something I noticed. People tease me about having inexpensive cars and obsolete cameras, but that isn't on my life agenda right now. My father-in-law has always advised "Do it now. Later, you won't be able to enjoy it."
To read things, learn things, go places, see things, do things. That's what I want. What I want is my good work, one cultural outing per weekend day (just one per day, mind you, Mrs. BD), time with my spouse, friends and kids, good energetic manual labor at home and at the farm, interesting and adventurous travel, and a tangible relationship with God.
I sort-of gave up on pursuing the rational goal of financial security long ago: it's a fool's errand, one keeps raising the bar - it can be life-destroying. Furthermore, whenever you think things are going swell, a surprise happens to mess it up. Everybody worries about money, even Warren Buffet. Worry is part of life but it should not be allowed to get in the way of living. Otherwise, what's the point?
Do you feel the same way? Or am I suffering from "Midlife Disorder"? (If so, I sure hope this is only midlife, and that there is a pill or an app for that.)
The most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) defines PTSD as the presence of three symptom clusters — reexperiencing via nightmares or flashbacks; numbing or withdrawal; and hyperarousal, evident in irritability, insomnia, aggression, or poor concentration — that arise in response to a life-threatening event.
Both halves of this definition are suspect. To start with, the link to a traumatic event, which makes PTSD almost unique among complex psychiatric diagnoses in being defined by an external cause, also makes it uniquely problematic, for the tie is really to the memory of an event. When PTSD was first added to the DSM-III in 1980, traumatic memories were considered reasonably faithful recordings of actual events. But as research since then has repeatedly shown, memory is spectacularly unreliable and extraordinarily malleable. We routinely add or subtract people, details, settings, and actions to our memories. We conflate, invent, and edit.
I am skeptical about the existence of the diagnosis as a disease entity, because it sounds like a normal, or at least unremarkable, reaction to me. Intense reactions to intense things in life is not pathological. It's how life shapes us, twists us, and eventually wears us down and ultimately kills us. Who said "Reality is for people who can't handle drugs"?
Show me one adult who does not harbor some deep pain which affects his life in mostly negative ways. I'd like to meet them. There's a CS Lewis quote which I cannot remember but which goes something like "Be kind, because everyone you meet is enduring some deep struggle and pain." It's not called "a vale of tears" for nothing. People - and kids - are commonly permanently wounded by divorce, for example. Some joy and delight in life too, thank God.
However, I do understand that nowadays people want their struggle called a disease so they can get insurance and/or disability checks.
Were zoning abolished, rent control repealed, and developers given free rein in New York, could growth rates remotely comparable to sunbelt cities possibly be matched? Not likely. Even equaling Houston's growth rate – a city with abundant vacant land in and around its downtown – would probably be a challenge. Affordability is an even more distant goal using supply-based strategies alone. Relaxing development restrictions that worsen affordability and hinder supply is a crucial goal, but not one which is likely to lead to rapid population increases, or housing cost relief, in built-out and geographically-constrained cities.
In media, connectivity is all about getting content out in as many ways possible, as quickly as you can. There is no worrying about how information is processed. When there were limited forms of media outlets, the ability to add discussion (Op/Ed pieces in print, news shows on TV) created some context and helped the information flow. With the myriad resources available today, and the speed at which information arrives, context is being pushed to the side in favor of raw data. The medium is no longer the message. The message predominates.
How is this impacting youth?
It's troubling question, leading researchers to address the different potential outcomes. There are indications that people's brains are becoming 'wired' differently. But whether that wiring is improving decision making or analysis is open to question.
My point of view is that shortened attention spans and more breadth of knowledge (exchanged for less depth) is the likely outcome, which is not necessarily beneficial.
the immersive nature of 24/7 connectedness creates the illusion that Millennials can somehow tap into a form of collective intelligence just by being online, while looking impatiently for messages every three minutes.
I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the (catcher's) glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters, and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes, I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me.[6]
A young woman recently commented to me that she thought one reason she was in love with a certain man was because he "made her feel safe." "Safe from what?" I asked. She thought for a minute and said "Safe from the world, I guess."
It's not an unusual topic of conversation among some of my more conservative lady pals to speculate about why women have some tendency to vote more Leftist than men do.
We have lots of theories, but more questions than anything else.
For some examples, Women are more caring and nurturing, less aggressive or more needy than men (maybe, possibly, I sort of doubt it but, if so, why would women think of government as a vehicle for those feelings?)
Or, Women are fearful of losing a man, and want government to step in as a husband if needed
Or, many women don't have a man, and would rather lean on government than on charity
Or, Women are more prone to parental transferences to powerful government, while masculine pride resists accepting government "help" because it makes them feel diminished
We have other theories too.
Here's a piece on a related topic at Reason: "Women vs. the State. It’s time to liberate ladies from unequal and unjust government policies."
It's been a giant cultural change in medicine. Half of medical students are women these days. Many of them are Asians.
Allan Bloom
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Besides "social media," it's interesting to me how others keep in touch with their old friends, how they reach out and make new friends, and, in general, how they keep their interpersonal lives alive, vibrant, and stimulating. 
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.
In youth, one needs and wants stuff: a roof over one's head, maybe a spouse, transportation, some domestic machines and comforts, recreational toys (guns, tennis raquets, boats, speakers, etc), appropriate clothing, and decent schools for your kids.
