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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Sunday, October 23. 2016Jazz CentralHow New York became the focal point of the American art form—and why it will probably remain so Jazz is meant to be heard live, in dark smokey places. A little marijuana definitely helps with any music appreciation, but especially jazz. Jazz and Folk were commercially destroyed by Rock and Pop in the late 50s. Niche music now, but still happily abundant in NYC.
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
16:40
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Saturday, October 22. 2016Figures of Speech
In other words, figures of speech add poetry and color to language. When over-used, they lose their power and fade into ordinary and become, really, unheard. If you had OCD you could have been a Renaissance scholar classifying the 184 types of figures of speech, but the five most of us learned in grade school are simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification and synecdoche.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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18:57
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Sell Your Furniture Online in 5 Simple Steps
One thing to bear in mind is that your excess, old, or even antique furniture, however sentimentally-attached to it you might feel, is worth very little. Probably a tenth of what was paid for it. Brown-colored furniture (ie antiques or old stuff with dark-stained wood) is particularly undesirable. If you think it's worth $500, it might be saleable for $20-40 at best. Many people use Craig's just to get a few bucks to have somebody take it away because stuff has little value unless somebody wants/needs that exact thing at that exact moment.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
16:29
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Friday, October 21. 2016Penn Station
Today, it's "Lead us not into Penn Station." The news: Penn Station, Reborn? A visionary plan to restore the transit hub to its former glory as part of West Side redevelopment I am skeptical.
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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05:44
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Thursday, October 20. 2016Belmont and FishtownI am grateful to live in a Belmont where most people aspire to be good upright contributing citizens, or at least to appear to be. A reminder of a modern sociological classic: Belmont & Fishtown - On diverging classes in the United States. (That is a link to his essay summary of the ideas in the book.) There is also a good (video) talk by Murray at that link, about the book.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:08
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Wednesday, October 19. 2016For long flights
I am not asking for a weight room, just some cardio machines, some light weights, some floor mats, some hard and soft boxes, some bars for pull-ups, etc. Simple but with room to move. Charge me extra. Maybe a shower too. On our upcoming flight, we are going First Class thanks to the gift of miles from my in-laws. Still I'd take a gym over the bigger seat and the legroom - because I am not a sitter. As for airplane food, regardless of class, no thanks. Grab a sandwich or a yoghurt in the airport. And they toss you this crap as if you were some starving dog in a dog shelter. When I told my trainer about this desire for airplane gyms, he emailed me the below. I think that flight was wasted without a girlfriend or wife to spice it up. This dude is a jackass:
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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18:03
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Why people believe they can’t draw - and how to prove they canI guess you could call it drawing. It is fun to draw along with him while you watch.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:44
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Tuesday, October 18. 2016Sex conferenceI recently stopped by a "Different Sexualities" seminar to see what people were talking about. One of the provocative topics was whether pedophilia was a sexual orientation. Some said yes, and some said it was a latent tendency in all males. Another topic addressed rape and sexual violence. Some felt it was a sexual preference, and some claimed it was latent in all males. Sex addiction? There was no agreement about whether it even exists but it was a consensus that the Western bourgeois nuclear family was an unnatural and possibly "unhealthy" artifact of culture, economics, and male power. Also discussed were fetishes (cross-dressing, item fetishes, S&M, exhibitionism). It was made clear at the outset that anything LGBT was normal and would not be discussed to keep the meeting "safe." Whatever. How they could be sure that there were no uncomfortable pedophiles in the room, I do not know. I can not claim to be able to measure how much "polymorphous perversity" or ordinary perversity might be latent or only partially expressed in a given human, male or female, so I just listened. What struck me most, and discouraged me most, was how politicized it all became, and how quickly complex psychological issues became subsumed under feminist rubrics of "patriarchal hegemony" and "oppression." These do not enlighten, they are just cant. Contrary to some popular impressions, sexuality is not the central topic in modern Psychology, Psychiatry, or Psychoanalysis. It is just one aspect of who a person is and, generally, we are interested in all aspects of a person.
Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:47
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Monday, October 17. 2016The 7-11s of Japan
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:54
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Sunday, October 16. 2016Fetishizing Science
"Science" is an odd word. I guess it applies to knowledge obtained through the scientific method. I do not fetishize it because I am a natural skeptic - and because I know that science is done by human beings with egos and a need for income. Hence Most Scientific Findings Are Wrong or Useless.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:12
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Pinker on pure moralismFrom a review of a book by Steven Pinker: Shakespeare: One of the First and Greatest Psychologists:
He is a Psycho-utopian. Keep dreaming, Steven.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:43
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Free ad for Allstate insuranceBusted pipe, flooded basement last May. We have three 1/2 rooms down there: a bedroom with good windows and bath, a pantry, and two storage rooms (one for tools and hunting and boating stuff, and one for general saved stuff). Mostly finished rooms. Allstate sent their teams over for a couple of months and it's all better than it was before. We never had to lift a finger. Now we have a water-warning system. Thanks, Allstate. The new pantry (minus the old second fridge which had to be cut up to get out of there. Can't live without a Sawzall.):
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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05:06
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Friday, October 14. 2016Songs are not literature?
Of course they are. They might be bad literature, but lyrics are lyrics, and lyrics are poetry. Probably music lyrics came first, though, like chants with drumming or something. The Iliad was music lyrics, or at least a story set to music. The Psalms are songs for which the music has been lost. "Psalm" = Song.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:03
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Thursday, October 13. 2016Prof gets the snowflakes wrong
The Prof is hopelessly naive about human nature. In looking at human behavior, one must always be alert to the aggression and power-seeking. There is no sensitivity or hypersensitivity in these kids. They are manipulative bullies, "crybullies" as they are called. It has been stunning for me to watch real educated adults take these infantile tactics seriously or to be intimidated by them Or perhaps they don't take them seriously, but are happy to find an excuse to do what they themselves wanted to do anyway. In any event, there is no innocence in the PC circus. My response to that is that, if infantile or regressive behavior is rewarded, you will get more of it. That is regardless of age. If adult behavior is rewarded, you will get more of that. And as the man said, higher ed is not day-care. Wednesday, October 12. 2016Is Brutalism cool?
That old Whitney Museum in NYC is just as hideous under its new name. It is unpleasant inside, too. I just figure that Bauhaus wasn't ugly or inhuman enough, so, to make a name for themselves, architects had to take ugly to its endpoint.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
19:31
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A bookThe Son, by Philipp Meyer. An American epic. The bio on Amazon is interesting:
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:38
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Tuesday, October 11. 2016Down EastIn my youth, I knew Bert (Bob Bryan). A hell of a good guy, still around, I think. The first is a successful hunt.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
17:21
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Sunday, October 9. 2016A Night To RememberOne of my Vietnam veteran buddies in North Carolina just sent me this email. It's worth sharing, to help recall what is important, and who. The charity which is linked is very well worth your attention, please. "Once a year the charity for the crippled old ARVN vets still suffering in Viet Nam holds a dinner concert and fundraiser. (www.thevhf.org ) It was scheduled for this past Saturday evening and the MC and singers flew in from California on Friday for it. But then came the hurricane, which was supposed to mostly miss Raleigh..... but that forecast was just a bit off, and we got 9 inches of rain, very high winds, all kinds of flooding, trees down across roads, power outages all over. Including the rental hall for the party. And the official recommendations from the authorities were for people to stay home until it blew over. "As I got ready to go in the early evening, my wife asked me why I would go, when it should be cancelled and there was no power at the hall. I told her that 1- the organizers had gotten a 10KW generator to run power as needed, and 2- these are people who went to sea in small leaky boats at great risk, or walked across Cambodia to get to camps in Thailand, or survived "re-education", and spent years in refugee camps to get here with nothing to start all over again in a strange new country. There was no way that rain and slick roads would mean anything worth stopping for to them! "And sure enough, we had 90% attendance, even with people who had to drive long distances to get there. They had bought dozens of candles to light every table, the caterer (also Vietnamese) had brought sterno warming pans for all the hot food, ice for the drinks, etc. The power wasn't level enough in voltage for the sound equipment, but they brought in a piano and someone to play it for music, and the singers worked through all that. "Starting first, with the star male singer, a superb baritone, singing the Star Spangled Banner a cappella. And there was NO ONE in this crowd sitting down, everyone was standing, hand over heart, and many sang along. In the flickering candlelight of the tables with the wind and rain drumming outside, it was something special. And OK, call me a sentimental, silly, old American.... but my eyes..... my eyes let me down, they spilled water down my cheeks as I tried to sing along through a throat tightened with emotion. And then they sang the old national anthem of South Viet Nam, and the whole crowd sang with strength and clarity. It was all something to experience. "After which the show went on and everyone had a great, great time. I was very happy and proud to be there."
Posted by Bruce Kesler
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
19:08
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Monday, October 3. 2016Smart GuyJames Miller interviews Gregory Cochran, MIT Physicist, anthropologist, and geneticist. Polymath Cochran discusses everything from politics to racial genetics to medieval Chinese war strategy and pretty much any random topic. It is a delight to be in on a chat with a true Smart Guy. A long Podcast, Meaty. Greg Cochran has a website.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
13:29
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Thursday, September 29. 2016One more from Storm King
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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04:59
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Wednesday, September 28. 2016Killing the American Dream
Only government has the power to kill growth. Government can not make the economic pie larger, but it can easily shrink it.
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:46
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Saturday, September 24. 2016Chomsky was wrong
Because that turns out to be wrong too. Much of Noam Chomsky’s revolution in linguistics—including its account of the way we learn languages—is being overturned If interested in language, Roger Brown's fascinating 1968 Words and Things can't be beat.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
13:58
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Wednesday, September 21. 2016Urban Planning
Urban planners are central planners, meaning that they usually are arrogant and get things wrong. Nowadays, few people wish to live full-time in the countryside or in the woods except for misanthropes. People like a vibrant, human-scale community whether in New York City or in Rumford, Maine. Jane Jacobs’s Street Smarts - What the urbanist and writer got so right about cities—and what she got wrong.
WarWe Asked Gen Mattis About Why Civilians Don’t Understand War. A quote from the article:
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:05
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More on PostureI posted on the topic of posture a few months ago. Here's more: Posture Affects Standing, and Not Just the Physical Kind. Rightly or wrongly, your posture is taken as an index of your self-respect and self-confidence.
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