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, July 8. 2018Can scientists admit their errors?Scientists Rarely Admit Mistakes. A New Project Wants to Change That. What are researchers to do when they lose confidence in their previously published work? A new project seeks to offer them an outlet.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:16
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Saturday, June 30. 2018How to succeed in lifeHe makes it seem so simple.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:24
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Thursday, June 28. 2018Some fun about Charles MurrayMurray might be the most important social scientist of our time, but he became toxic to the Left for speaking truth about subcultural issues. Most of his recent work has been concerned with the white underclass, which is far larger than other ethnic or racial underclasses in the US. Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, Professors judge scholar’s work. They deem it centrist. They had no clue it was written by Charles Murray. I'm not sure how data can be centrist or any other thing, but I guess that's how things are now. Even weather is political now.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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18:51
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Monday, June 25. 2018Cerebral hedonistRichard Feynman and the Pleasure Principle - How a cerebral hedonist became a scientific hero. He goes down in history as one of the Great American Teachers, like Barzun - and Leonard Bernstein.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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18:28
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Sunday, June 24. 2018Art marketsIn May 2016, a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold for $57.3 million. One year later, another painting of his from 1982, Untitled, sold for $110.5 million, making it the sixth-most-expensive work of art ever purchased at auction, and setting a record for an American artist.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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15:38
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The story of PyrexSaturday, June 23. 2018Tired ancient myths
Freud's one-time colleague in depth psychology had many interests but among them was a study of myths and the representations of archetypes embedded in them. In a way, Jung viewed myths as related to humanity as dreams are related to an individual. I suppose that seems obvious now. For reasons I do not understand, the New Republic has decided to dislike Jung: “Tired, Old Myths:” The New Republic Slanders Jung Thursday, June 21. 2018Leonard Bernstein Through His Daughter’s Eyes
From what I have heard, the "secrets" from his kids were no secrets in the world. The man had vast talents and either vast appetites or few inhibitions. Probably the latter.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:17
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Sunday, June 17. 2018Father's Day: Not the barber shop
Mrs. BD's Father's Day "present" to me was a trip to her fancy hair salon to get me an updated hair style to fit my Charlie Brown face and my buff body this past Friday. She said her gal there loves to do men's hair. Can I say that I was not comfortable going to that place? I've been going to Tony, my same old Sicilian barber for 25 years and only when it's past the point of necessity. My wife's cute and athletic hair gal (who I know from the gym) and Mrs. BD agreed that my haircuts were primitive and made me look old and stodgy, like a dorky Senator from Arkansas or a dork from 1980. "Short or long?" was Tony's only question. Story below the fold - Continue reading "Father's Day: Not the barber shop"
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:33
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Father's Day with music, reposted
My heart beamed Friday night as my sons welcomed the Sabbath with perfectly sung prayers. My heart broke Saturday night as my sons fought while I grilled a perfect wild-caught salmon, and I got indigestion instead of the meal I thought I deserved. I'm reminded of the saying, "A Man's children and his garden both reflect the amount of weeding done during the growing season." And, the growing goes both ways as we fathers grow, have to grow -- into the men we want to be under our children's careful observation, into the men that they need. We yearn to please but, most important, to pass on life's lessons. Father's Day is full of platitudes and real feelings, of missed and appreciated opportunities. And, of how much we care by just being there. I'm reminded of There's a wisecrack, "If God is so perfect, how do you explain us." As fathers, we're not perfect, but we try to find and know the ways to be better, and most of us find it. We continue to strive, and so may our children, with a higher hand to reach for and give us the strength to be better and have hope. It's not easy being the father or the child.
Posted by Bruce Kesler
in Religion, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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06:50
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Friday, June 15. 2018How Women Categorize Men
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:48
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Thursday, June 14. 2018Bring big bears back to CaliforniaWednesday, June 13. 2018How the Left left Heather MacDonald behind
Posted by The Barrister
in Education, Politics, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:44
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Monday, June 11. 2018What the internet is made ofLots of low-tech: Fiber optic wires, servers, and more than 550,000 miles of underwater cables: Here's what the internet actually looks like
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:22
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Sunday, June 10. 2018Princeton wants to make Princeton men more vulnerable
What the people promoting this notion miss is that most males spend years trying to be, or trying to at least act or appear, emotionally strong, brave, and tough. There are many good reasons for that, not the least being because these are things that appeal to women. It's not just cultural, though. There's a biological substrate to it, obvious to anyone who has raised kids. Guys work to be emotionally strong in the same way they work to be physically strong, and to be tough in their effectiveness in the world. It's their job. Might be womens' job too, but that's another subject. So enough of this baby-talk, Princeton, unless you wish to become a high-end kindergarten.. Wednesday, June 6. 2018Why The Left HATES Jordan PetersonThis gal does a good job. (A couple of annoying ads, but still worth watching.)
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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15:49
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DisneyworldBulldog's Free Ad for Disneyworld reminded me of Carl Hiassen's book Native Tongue, a dark comedy (as usual, "ruthlessly wicked") about the dark underbelly of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:40
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Sunday, June 3. 2018Useful clothingPhoto: Good travel clothing for men and women, and pickpocket-proof in case you go to Europe with all of their immigrant thieves: Clothing Arts. Good work clothing for women who want to look feminine but professional: Nora Gardner.com (with a new store opening in Boston's Back Bay this week). All made in the USA. Best hiking/climbing clothing: Montane Prana Zion is good too.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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17:07
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Thursday, May 31. 2018A good story
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:57
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Tuesday, May 29. 2018The damage the 60s did to culture and politicsFrom Roger Kimball's The Long March: Reckoning With 1968's 'Cultural Revolution,' 50 Years On
Posted by The Barrister
in Politics, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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17:10
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Sunday, May 27. 2018Driving directions: The big pictureSure, we've all had experiences when the voice on the GPS thing directed us poorly. Mrs. BD and I have especially had those experiences in Europe. It can waste a lot of time, but sometimes can be serendipitously interesting anyway. One time, in Sicily, we were directed through miles of dirt roads in lemon groves because the Euroland thing was set for "most direct route". Yeah, it was an "as the crow flies" route to some obscure place we wanted to hike with the Christian tombs carved into the cliffs. I like maps for the big picture, and the driving tech for the details. Just last weekend, driving home from a fishing trip, I kept wondering "What town are we in?" I felt like "Where the heck are we, on a map? Where are we, on the planet?" We didn't have a clue, but WAZE got us home. I think a combination of a map and a GPS voice are a handy combination - one for the practical and one for curiosity.
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:47
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Thursday, May 24. 2018Bamboccioni, etc
This was normal in the pre-industrial era, and has always been commonly accepted in Italy.
Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:04
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Tuesday, May 22. 2018Short storyA modern classic: Tobias Wolf's Bullet in the Brain (just 4 pages). It begins Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders – a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed. ..
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:59
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Friday, May 18. 2018Tom Wolfe: Intellectual Counter-IntellectualTom Wolfe was brilliant in lampooning the fashionably America-hating intelligentsia, among other things. He was much more than that, of course. A Wolfe quote from Continetti's excellent Jonathan Swift in a White Suit: Tom Wolfe's campaign against intellectual idiocy
another:
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:32
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Thursday, May 17. 2018The birth and death of the caboose
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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13:00
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