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.
The Late, Great American WASP - The old U.S. ruling class had plenty of problems. But are we really better off with a country run by the self-involved, over-schooled products of modern meritocracy?
... the WASP elite had dignity and an impressive sense of social responsibility. In a 1990 book called "The Way of the Wasp," Richard Brookhiser held that the chief WASP qualities were "success depending on industry; use giving industry its task; civic-mindedness placing obligations on success, and antisensuality setting limits to the enjoyment of it; conscience watching over everything."
Under WASP hegemony, corruption, scandal and incompetence in high places weren't, as now, regular features of public life. Under WASP rule, stability, solidity, gravity and a certain weight and aura of seriousness suffused public life. As a ruling class, today's new meritocracy has failed to provide the positive qualities that older generations of WASPs provided.
Only WASPS know what "NOCD" means - but we often marry outside our tribe nowadays, just as Jews do. I am a loyal tribalist, myself. I think it works out for the best, speaking the same language, having the same social, psychological, moral, and behavioral expectations, finding familial comfort after the cultural adventures of youth. Every tribe has its own snobbery, its own unspoken language, and its own zone of comfort. Birds of a feather...We recognize our own peeps in an instant.
My tribe, my cultural ways, may not be dominant in the US anymore but, like other American subcultures, we retain and protect our ways of living and of doing the things we do within our own domains. There are lots of those domains left, but mostly private - and churches.
I don't know why they bother to wonder whether he was gay or not. Sounds more shy and inhibited to me, but who cares? I didn't know that he was a New Yorker.
Craig's List has it all. I am told you can search "Diesel," "Dog Food," or "Pain Relief," and if you sort through the listings you can find whatever you want. Heroin, Meth, coke, crack, Ecstasy, pot, Oxycontin, etc.
I do not want this stuff, but lots of people do. Yes, they deliver to your door or workplace in manila envelopes, but they do not take credit cards.
Thus the successful government war on drugs, ongoing since the Nixon administration. Prohibition never works. This is an ordinary Black Market similar to the Black Market for booze during Prohibition (when Joe Kennedy got rich with his Boston mobster buddies).
I am opposed to drug prohibition, and I am opposed to substance abuse as a terrible life plan.
One of the many things missed by many so-called "cosmopolitan sophisticates" (actually self-absorbed reality avoiders) is that the deepest pleasures in life are in giving, not taking, and creating the appreciation for giving in our children.
We had a full day scheduled for today, as do most families on weekends. Each year for the past eight or so the boys and I have brought new toys to the breakfast at Camp Pendleton (about a half-hour north of us) paid for by Congressman Issa, whose foundation pays for many such charitable works throughout North County San Diego. We usually go at about 11AM but would need to go at 7:30AM in order to make it to Gavin's basketball game at 11AM. I asked Gavin if he wanted to skip the toy collection breakfast today, so he wouldn't be tired for the game due to the earlier wakeup. Gavin immediately replied, "But, then poor kids will not have as many toys for the Holidays." Out of the mouth of babes (actually a just a month short of 9-years old) comes the core wisdom we take pleasure is seeing in our children.
So, arriving early, Congressman Issa marveled at how both boys have grown over the years he has known them.
Then we joined another family with whom we've sat for the past 5-years, whose son Eugene also had a basketball game today, so they arrived early, and for the same reason -- to make sure that kids less fortunate had new toys for Christmas.
Off to basketball, Gavin arrived just as the game began, and his increasing skills were soon evident. (We practice together every chance we get, especially right now on strengthening his dribbling with his non-dominant hand.) (below) -
It's just a matter of degree. Shouldn't the government simply put Prozac and amphetamines into the water supplies? Historically, one of the selling points of Coke was the coke in the mix.
It's not a bad deal to be poor in America. Government benefits are almost endless, not to mention private charity. Everybody will try to give you money and stuff. American "poor" don't have to work, have big TVs, cars, and air-conditioning, EBT cards, food stamps, and subsidized housing. Good for them.
If feeling poor is appealing, there is a sure-fire way to accomplish that. Be single, have kids, and don't work. Don't get any religious sustenance, and don't learn how to do anything useful. Add a little substance abuse or jail tattoos to that or some body piercings, for maximum effect, and make sure you have no positive social network. In other words, don't build your life in a rational, civilized manner.
Well, there is another way. What's the "poorest" village in America? Kiryas Joel. They are all on welfare. Happy. I believe many of them work off the books, too.
What can be more fun during Thanksgiving break than shooting a gun with family and friends? It can be the best time of year to get some target practice. I will usually grab my father-in-law and my boys and head out to a local range. This year, we didn't go. However, we typically visit family on Fire Island the following weekend, and they provided a surprise. Skeet shooting off the deck into the Great South Bay. 12 gauge pump actions and a 12 gauge over/under were the tools available.
“The American market for straightforward guides to etiquette dwarfs the British one. Even though large numbers of the British and especially the English are sticklers for etiquette, they pretend that such matters are either unworthy of discussion or in no need of it. Much more popular are guides that give them cynical or supercilious treatment. These reflect, wittily and sometimes not so wittily, on when it is a good idea to lie, how to navigate the hell of a second family, and the art of deflecting people who threaten to be tedious. It is a defining feature of English manners that they can be treated, simultaneously, as vitally important yet also comical. But then one could apply the very same terms to Englishness itself.”
I do plenty of DIY stuff around the house, but wish I was this handy. Gotta compliment the guy, he did a helluva job restoring this cabin and making it livable.
When I was much younger and lived in the East I went on many barefoot and small luxury sailings all over the Caribbean, primarily to the more diverse and less "Americanized" southern reaches. From San Diego, however, the air connections to the southern Caribbean waste a full day of misery. You can't beat the islands of the south, but it's not worth the arduous flight unless for more than several weeks stay.
One of the advantages of having young sons is that they have not seen the southern Caribbean and would not be disappointed by the more touristy Western Caribbean. They are curious and adventurous travelers -- and well behaved, pleasant company -- so, off we went with a direct connection from San Diego to Miami, a day of relaxation there, and then a Carnival ship to Cozumel, Belize, Honduras, and Grand Cayman. Thanksgiving, Chanukah and my birthday made for a very special trip of lasting memories.
I haven't been in Miami since I left Florida in 1979. A convenient public bus took us to South Beach from our hotel on a bay. Lincoln Road pedestrian mall has certainly improved with blocks chock full of tropical plantings and ethnic restaurants surrounded by spacioius outdoor seating areas under large umbrellas or canopies. The Santa Monica pedestrian mall is inspired by Lincoln Road but far misses the mark. We lucked in to the very best Cuban food ("YUCA"=Young Urban Cuban Americans) I've had since leaving Florida, and the boys gobbled theirs with many Hmmmmms of delectable delight. A bit further along the walk we came upon a giant Menorah and Dreidal for upcoming Chanukah. We didn't count but took the sign's word that it was made of over 25,000 seashells.
The next treat was visiting the historic Art Deco hotels along the South Beach. Before they became trendy, and extremely expensive, my grandmother would come down for the winters in the 1960s and 1970s. The insides are deluxe now but the exteriors are preserved. Lit up at night you feel like you stepped back to the 1930s and 1940s. The boys stood on the spot where I have a photo of me with my grandmother. She would be smiling with nachas.
The famous wide Miami Beach and its high rise hotels of varying ages, from the 1950s to now, are across the street from Grandma's hotel and stretch for miles.
(h/t American Digest) - Africa's Aid Mess - Renowned author Paul Theroux discusses
why the philanthropy of Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Bono, and Jeffrey
Sachs largely fails. Here's what works.
A quote:
I was impressed by the self-sufficiency of ordinary people. Without much in the way of outside help, the people in the countries I knew managed to endure, usually through the simplest traditional means, and finally to prevail. Africa has the schools, the money and the resources to fix its own problems; it's appalling to think of donors telling them otherwise, of the whole continent terminally indebted and living on handouts.
It seems that the preening condescension of Western billionaires' "help" is not what Africans need. Like the Appalachian hillbillies in the 1960s, they don't know they need help but, like most humans, they'll take a freebie.
Does Africa need my help? Investment is one thing, but help?
I think even the sternest of moralists—such as I—could not help but think on hearing her story of Blake’s line, “some to misery are born.” Prison was the first time in her life she had experienced reasonably consistent and decent treatment; and sad to relate, her loss of freedom was a boon to her. She flourished (comparatively speaking) there.
When I returned home from having examined her, my wife told me that she had received a telephone call from her bank. The person from the bank had asked for her by name and then said, “First I have to ask you some security questions.”
“Since you phoned me,” said my wife, “are you sure it is not I who should be asking you some security questions?”
Kudlow on the radio today ruminated about, bemoaned, the lack of moral and spiritual equality in America today.
It reminded me of something a niece said about a friend, who had gotten engaged, at Thanksgiving: "She's psycho-socially a bit primitive, not too refined, so they're a good match."
Here's one quote of the Inquisitor's monologue to the returned and imprisoned Jesus Christ:
So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, "Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!" And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same.
Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down to Thee alone -- the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.
The Late, Great American WASP
From The Brothers Karamazov (1879). The chapter is one of the most famous passages in literature, and it's time we re-linked it.