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.
My sweep pal was here yesterday morning for my biennial or triennial chimney cleanings. We have posted here several times about chimney fires and chimney cleaning, such as here.
Attention recent college grads: He gets $150/chimney, and it takes him 20-30 minutes. A discount for multiple chimneys. He runs his own life his own way. Retired USMC.
He is a fireplace buff and keeps a wood stove burning in his kitchen all fall and winter. He has a place on Cape Cod and burns there on those cool damp summer evenings too. He agrees with me that a clean fireplace makes a lousy fire. You need a 5 or 6" pile of ash underneath. A clean chimney is another matter. I keep the Maggie's Farm home fire burning all day, October-May. Generally, he scrapes a bucket of stuff out of my flue each time he comes.
Why don't I invest in the brushes and do it myself?
Perhaps I will. We have protection these days from ye olde Chimney Sweep's Cancer - cancer of the scrotum. Nasty disease.
There are many small ways of being quietly and undramatically herioc in life, short of going into combat. It's heroic, in a sense, for an agoraphobic to go to the store, for a drunk to go to AA, or for a man to do an unpleasant job his whole life to take care of his family.
Heather MacDonald has fun with the OWS people (who seem to be slowly getting less coverage and interest - and cold rainy Octobers are not fun times to sleep in a park) at City Journal: Get a Job! Working is (usually) more admirable than protesting. She begins:
Why is a month-long slumber party in a public park more heroic or newsworthy than getting up daily and going to work? “I’ve been here a week and I’m lovin’ every minute of it,” a jagged-toothed, self-described vet leaning against a planter in Zuccotti Park told me on Sunday. One of the biggest decisions that he and his fellow occupiers have to make each day is whether to eat vegan or to scarf down some saturated animal fats in the Dunkin’ Donuts that regularly make the rounds, thanks to the bounteous food donations that pour into the park on an hourly basis. (The most critical decision, of course, is which local establishment to invade for your sanitary needs.)
I am deeply concerned about a risk for obesity and constipation among these heroic protesters. Read the whole, amusing thing, and realize that this is a sort of lark for these people, a vacation from real life, party time in the guise of socio-political importance.
As he points out, this nonsense led indirectly to the terrible child abuse "hidden memory" epidemic which destroyed many peoples' lives before finally being fully discredited.
The saying, “charity begins at home”, gets at many issues at the heart of most learned discussions of the charitable deduction from income tax, but also raises a core issue that is too often missed. The income tax is not about charity and should not be given equivalency to charity, and even if many government programs are charitable individual choices to either give charity or not is preferable in most cases and should not be discouraged or dictated by government.
Charity should not begin, or end, wherever government says so. Government should begin or end wherever citizens say so. There's room between but to place government above private choice and enterprise is to misplace priorities and public good and benefits.
The US Senate Finance Committee just held hearings about the charitable deduction that mirrored the arguments that have been raised since the inception of the deduction with the federal income tax during World War I. The questions revolve, and revolve and revolve, around should there be a deduction or other scheme, how much should be allowed, by whom, to which type of organization. Reading a brief history of hearings on the deduction, there is an underlying premise that all of income is subject to government priorities.
I won’t argue for the most selfish interpretation of “charity begins at home”, that all of one’s means should be kept within one’s walls. The Jewish conception of what in English is called charity, tzedakah, makes it a high personal obligation, and unlike the frequently cited 10% the Jewish Testament calls for more as can be afforded. Christians and others of good faith or morality think similarly and give similarly.
On the other hand (as any good Talmudic discussion goes) “charity begins at home” also raises that it is voluntary and one should not abuse one’s personal responsibilities. In other words, the fruits of one’s inheritance or labor are primarily one’s own to decide their use. On the other hand, again, in the social contract we enter into for the personal benefits of being part of a larger order, government, we accept that we are taxed for the general good. In a democracy, cumulatively we choose how much that tax may be and on what. Of course, that is not perfect as there are differing ideas of how much and on what. But, public engagement and elections are available to weigh in.
Throughout the years of government debates on the charitable deduction the incentive has been on raising government revenues, with differing theories of who should pay how much and the relative efficiencies of the schemes and their effects on differing types of recipients being the details.
No one denies, all should abhor, that there are many recipient organizations that abuse the laws and donors’ good intentions to profit insiders and not the public good. That calls for increased enforcement through public exposure, investigations and criminal prosecution. But, on the other hand, that still leaves many recipient organizations allowed by the tax code to commit other abuses of common understandings of charity, such as being mostly political or their proceeds benefiting other than the needy poor. After much outrage and years of mulling this, I still have to come down on the side of the argument that says our money is ours and that there is inadequate justification for giving it instead to government that too often does the same as non-charity charities, not to mention profiting politicians, revolving-door or job-protecting bureaucrats, and government cronies.
Washington, D.C. is the country’s wealthiest area, richer than Silicon Valley. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says “government jobs must take priority over private-sector jobs.” There are Republican and Democrat feeders at the government trough and who are profiting from crony capitalism. There is less to show from all their taxpayer expense than they would want us to believe. There is more to show in general public good from entrepreneurs, productive businesses, steering progress through private choices of what is needed or desirable.
I never have the free time to do all of the things I want to do. All I have is late evenings and weekends, plus stealing a few minutes to try to throw something of interest onto our website.
Besides work and taking care of kids, what productive, fun, or constructive (or unconstructive) things do our readers do?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Here's what I do: A little golf, a little horseback riding with the Mrs., Deacon at church, one committee in our town government, a committee at our golf club, a fund-raising committee for a conservation charity, a little fishing in season, a little shooting, unskilled labor on our place (field-mowing, tree-clearing, log-splitting, fence-repairing, some barn cleaning), spare-moments surfing the net, some book-reading every night, and a fair amount of socializing which I try to limit to two things per week. A quite ordinary American life for a fellow whose kids have flown the nest, I think. A nobody, or an everybody. I am blessed that my spouse, dogs, and friends like me.
I've seen enough cloisers and cloister gardens in Europe to occupy my brain for a lifetime, but we went down to The Cloisters yesterday with friends to go on the Medieval Gardening tour. The museum overlooks the Hudson River near the northern tip of Manhattan, not far from where Alexander Hamilton's farm and country house was located.
Good fun. 1 1/2 hrs. Excellent docent, clearly loves her topic. She spent 15 minutes on the plants in the 15th C. unicorn tapestries besides going outdoors to discuss the medieval gardens. (I think most people go to the Cloisters just to see the unicorn tapestries, the subject of which is a symbolic mingling of romantic and sexual love with Christianity but it is difficult to understand them without an informed introduction to them.)
A Hortus conclusus is an enclosed garden, taken by monks from the Roman enclosed gardens, with a Christian symbolic gloss. (As I always say, if you want to understand the Romans, one must look at oneself. We of the Anglosphere are Romans.)
It's taken me many years to learn one thing: Wwherever you go, Always Take The Tour first. Be humble and learn.
Presentation matters, in dress as well as in attitude, comportment, and, of course, useful skills and ability.
"One of the saddest sights in the hotel conference hall is not so much the sloppily dressed interview candidate, as the ineptly dressed interview candidate — the one in the brand new, too-cheap, shiny, ill-fitting suit with too-short sleeves and too-long pants, rushing through the halls clutching a fake-leather briefcase. That person smells of desperation. Don’t let it be you."
I do a fair amount of interviewing and don't give a darn about how people are dressed as long as it shows some respect for themselves and for my time. Most people care about these things more than I do. However, one must sell oneself, not just to get a job but also to keep a job.
Please shave your beaver, or have the Korean ladies give you a Brazilian.
Why?
Why must men shave their faces in Western civilization? It is just one more annoying chore in getting ready to face the day, and it is surely "unnatural," and doubtless a contributor to global warmingcoolingclimate change whatever.
When I take a pass on this annoyance on the occasional weekend, She Who Must Be Obeyed tells me that I look like a bum. Well, I find taking showers a time-wasting burden too. I think I have an inner hippie, an inner Cave Man, or an inner Occupy Wall Street. Probably an inner Yankee Farmer.
If you shave your pet beaver, I will shave my face.
I don't really care if I look like a bum on weekends. Sue me. Good grooming is a hassle. When you reach maturity, hair grows revoltingly out of your damn ears and nostrils and everywhere else.
She is probably right that I need to conform to fit into modern society. I find it all tedious and tiring sometimes, but I have what it takes to keep on keepin' on. Happy wife, happy life, as they say.
Her experience, she explains, "led me to one of the most sobering insights I had as a professor-turned-student: how little intellectual life seemed to matter in college. This is not to say that no one cared about her education or that everyone cut all his classes. Rather, what I observed was that engagement in the philosophical and political issues of the day was not a significant part of college student culture."
Of course, people still commit innumerable bad actions, but the idea that people make conscious decisions to hurt or harm is no longer sustainable, say the new brain scientists. For one thing, there is no such thing as "free will" with which to decide to commit evil. (Like evil, free will is an antiquated concept for most.) Autonomous, conscious decision-making itself may well be an illusion. And thus intentional evil is impossible.
Many people do make conscious decisions to be hurtful or destructive. What could be more obvious? These neuroscientist folks can't see the mind for the neurons, it seems to me. As always in such cases, however, a conversation with the scientists would reveal that they do, themselves, lead lives in which good, evil, and choice are operative. Otherwise, they would deserve no recognition for their research because it was just their neurons making them do it.
Real news report:In Florida, an 81-year oldshuttle driver went door-to-door in an apartment complex posing as a doctor offering free breast exams. Women who have come forth so far, 32 and 36, agreed to the exam. --- Maybe they were confused, waiting for the brain transplant surgeon to arrive.
So, here's some other elder vignettes close to reality:
COUPLE in their nineties are both having problems remembering things. During a checkup, the doctor tells them that they're physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember ..
Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. 'Want anything while I'm in the kitchen?' he asks.
'Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?'
'Sure..'
'Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?' she asks.
'No, I can remember it..'
'Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, soas not to forget it?'
He says, 'I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.'
'I'd also like whipped cream. I'm certain you'll forget that, write it down?' she asks.
Irritated, he says, 'I don't need to write it down, I can remember it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream - I got it, for goodness sake!'
Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, The old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs.. She stares at the plate for a moment.
I’ve been a big shot in several giant corporations, several smaller ones, and a consultant on finance, business operations, HR and employee benefits to many more, aside from running my own business.
I’ve never seen a situation where excessive labor demands or behavior was not the fault of poor management. Once launched on grievance and then power seeking by labor, a downward spiral ensues. Sometimes management reforms, often not. Eventually, the business fails and all suffer.
When there are more effective competitors, that process is speeded.
Surviving US companies have met that competition by becoming more efficient in their processes or by sending manufacturing abroad for cheaper labor, or both devising better processes and sending it abroad to foreign factories or outsourcers.
US labor unions used to be very effective in developing free unions in poorer countries, as a bulwark against exploitive communist unions and to defend our prosperity in a freer world. Today, they are adamant against foreign outsourcing while refusing to become partners in US efficiencies, but have lost their position in all but government unions and similar where they can exert a monopoly granted by paid-off politicians. They do fight for fairer labor standards in free trade agreements, but mostly to impede outsourcing rather than to encourage free trade.
Free trade should not be an issue, as all benefit, us from cheaper products and focusing investments where we have a comparative advantage, foreign workers from getting a leg on the ladder to better living conditions than in rural drudgery and exploitation by local thugocrats.
We are not in the early 1900s, and shouldn’t blithely feel that eventually foreign workers will be in a better position. And we are Americans and do not believe in undue exploitation of others. We are in a faster, communicative world which does not wait decades and, further, the image of the US is more important when native populations and not just their elites are our audience and affect our own economic and national security interests.
The founder and now "Mentor" of Bridgewater Associates - probably the world's largest hedge fund - became fascinated by markets as a young caddy. This sui generis fellow, a HBS grad, has now put his company and management principles up on the internet.
There have been plenty of tributes to Steve Jobs' life. The man was a visionary and radically altered the world of computing several times. He also completely changed the world of animation.
What many people miss, however, is that he was not only a great inventor and leader, but an inspirational force that could help pull us out of the current mess we are in. Rather than whining and crying and asking for more from others, Jobs set a standard which all of us should follow.
Our system is founded on our inalienable right to pursue our own happiness in our own way, a right that is supposed actually to result in happiness, or at least in more happiness than if we did not enjoy such a right. When it comes to choosing a mate, we have to consider only our inclinations, and not such things as obligations to society or parents. And when the marriage no longer suits, when the immortal beloved begins to bore us in a way incompatible with the chronic ecstasy we have come to expect as the only worthwhile state for a man (or woman) to be in, we dissolve the marriage and go off in search of another potential source of undiluted and everlasting bliss.
Unfortunately, the pool of candidates has in the meantime contracted. Gone are our student days, when the field seemed so ripe for the harvest. The field has thinned out like the hair on a man’s head. It is time to advertise.
Baseball? Football? No - they are based on foreign sports. Both are quintessentially American, but neither can actually claim North American roots. Cricket, Rounders and Rugby are all British.
Volleyball? Basketball? No - both were invented here in the United States, but they are basically 20th Century pastimes.
I was drifting around the TV one weekend back in '94. I blundered across the U.S. Amateur Golf Championship, but, only being interested in the pros, I reached to click the remote.
But, well, the kid was about ready to hit his putt, and it's pretty rude to make any abrupt movements at that point, so I held off on the remote for a sec.
The ball rolled toward the hole a long 30 feet away. It rolled up a slight slope and veered to the left. It rolled up another slope and veered to the right. Then it veered to the left again. It crept right up to the hole...
and dropped in.
That was my introduction to Tiger Woods. I've rarely missed an event he's been in since.
I commented to Mrs. BD last night that one of the things I hate to hear people talk about is the usefulness of religion to society. I think O'Reilly was saying something like that on the tee vee in an interview with the atheism proselytizer Dawkins.
I jokingly refer to my sons as The Mother’s Curse. Did your mother, exasperated or angry, ever stand over you and say, “You should have children like you. Then you’ll know how I feel.”Surely, my mother is rolling over in her grave laughing at me because they’re like me as I remember my childhood.
They get under my skin when they’re obstinate, selfish, nasty, use bad words, make excuses, talk back. And, I sometimes lose my temper.
Yeah, they are only 11 and 6, I know, and they’ve progressed and are supposed to know and act better and control themselves as they grow older and more experienced.
To become better it is necessary to correct and instruct them, and be willing to make it stick. When they continue to not listen, and even dig in to provoke me, I sometimes blow my stack. And they tremble then and cool it.
But, I wish, and if wishes were fishes we’d never go hungry, they would listen and learn more and I yell at them less (especially when I overreact).
I’ve read many books and tried to follow their guidance. Yet, I still have to yell at them. And, they keep pushing back, one of their more lovable characteristics that they don’t back down or off easily.
Please shave your beaver, or have the Korean ladies give you a Brazilian.
I commented to Mrs. BD last night that one of the things I hate to hear people talk about is the usefulness of religion to society. I think O'Reilly was saying something like that on the tee vee in an interview with the atheism proselytizer Dawkins. 
OK, we all agree that Sargent Pepper was a stunning George Martin production but, that aside, what is your favorite? 
