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, December 11. 2016High culcha?
Also online, The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
Posted by The Barrister
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13:20
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Friday, December 9. 2016Woman power
Controlling men is child's play for women. Men tend to be complete suckers for female guile.
Posted by The News Junkie
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14:49
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Tuesday, December 6. 2016Christmas Cards, and friends
Mrs. Barrister and I update our address book whenever we feel forced to, but only get around to revising our Christmas Card subset of the address book every several years. Doing Christmas cards is an important tradition, an annual rite of connection. Also, one more holiday hassle. At our house we tend to get around to sending Christmas cards biennially because of the challenge of getting good, full-family photos but we are giving up on that challenge this year. It just didn't happen. We wanted everybody on horses in Montana, but assembling family is herding cats. The purpose of the photo is to prove your continued existence, but all it reveals is your aging and the touch of grey. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that revising the Christmas list is mostly sad, not cheerful. You see how many have died, moved far away, divorced, or moved entirely out of your lives with no known address. The cheerful side is to stay in touch with those who have moved too far to see with any frequency or at all, and to acknowledge the new good friends you have made since your last revision. We have been blessed with lasting friendships going back to grade school and prep school, and ones as new as this year. I will never move, as many do, to Florida for taxes or hot weather or, God forbid, California, as many friends seem to do. It pains me when people move away. Some people can not stay put, can live happily with shallower roots. Like restless pioneers, they move on and build rich new lives wherever they go. We do not have that ability or that restlessness; we do not want to rip the relationship fabric or the Yankee territorial fabric of our life however imperfect or highly-taxed it may be - and it is not meaningfully imperfect anyway - just expensive. This post is my Christmas Card from Connecticut to all of our good readers, site visitors, fellow contributors and friendly bloggers. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Cheery Solstice, and God bless us, every one.
Posted by The Barrister
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15:33
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The Organizational Man or Woman
People who rise to the top of organizations generally have more important skills than pure IQ. Knowing how to manage people up, sideways, and down is an essential organizational skill. So is knowing how to keep emotion out of it all, how to maintain a professional distance from others without being cold or aloof, how to gain authority without being a jerk, calm social and organizational judgement, and so on. People who start their own businesses or other organizations often learn such things slowly, by trial and error. In my career, I found Covey's classic 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to be quite useful. Perhaps professionalism can be learned, but not taught.
Posted by The Barrister
in Education, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:22
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Monday, December 5. 2016Data and Risk
Validation is always welcome. It's great to see someone pick up on your writing and think "I am glad I was able to add to the discussion." I believe this holds when a piece is shared on a site opposing what you've written. I'm not interested in an echo chamber. Twenty months after writing this post on data, I received notification of its inclusion on another site. Upon reading, one might be inclined to believe I'm not a fan of data. Not true, I just don't put my full faith in everything as it is presented, or simply because it's presented, to me. Since my post, 20 months have passed and nothing has changed. In fact the 2016 election was an example of organizations simply accepting data, becoming reliant on it, while few questioned its value. The data left me, and many others, inclined to believe Hillary would win. At the same time, it left me angry about how it was presented in a "See? We have more information and you don't know what's really going on" manner. The day of the election, however, the long lines I saw (in New York City) left me with the impression the data may not be telling the whole story. If Hillary voters in a safe city were turning out in droves, I came to the conclusion turnout would be high across the board, and high turnout usually coincides with a desire for change. The data itself may not be 'wrong' but whoever was using it was doing so improperly.
Continue reading "Data and Risk" Saturday, December 3. 2016Your heritage is the real gift
When you have kids and enter middle age, you think about what you will leave behind you for the future, for future generations in your family line. Everybody does that, I think, in their own way. It's the way culture and subcultures are maintained. Valued (or not) material items and photos are one sentimental part of that, but these things become diluted and dispersed over time, as does any money that is left behind. A family's cultural traditions, habits, and pleasures are the best inheritance to leave behind with hopes that they will carry meaning and value as far into the future as you can throw them. Messages from the graveyards - from your own future graveyard, and those of your ancestors. The parental job is transmission of genes and culture, and the provision of food and shelter. That's about it, but it's not an easy job in today's world. If you were a serf on a lord's estate in England in 1300, it was an uncomplicated if tiresome job. What's your opinion?
Posted by The Barrister
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13:36
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Sunday, November 27. 2016Office work
Around here, an experienced high-energy office manager can be paid between 100-170,000 with annual raises or bonuses and excellent benefits. Often paid more than the junior professionals in business offices.
Posted by The News Junkie
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12:55
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Sunday, November 20. 2016Pop SpotsThe exact locations of album cover photos and other visuals of pop history and how a Pop Culture Detective tracks them down.
Posted by Bird Dog
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16:54
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A book about Thanksgiving
Posted by The Barrister
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13:27
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Saturday, November 19. 2016A profile of Groucho Marx
Posted by Bird Dog
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14:59
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Sunday, November 6. 2016Moorish Architecture
Even after Christian kings had their long reconquista, but while Granada was the last Muslim outpost (until 1492), Moorish architects and craftsmen were in demand throughout the Iberian peninsula because the style was so popular. That post-Reconquista style is referred to as Mudejar, which often combined Moorish with some Gothic and Renaissance styles. Good summary: Islamic Architecture of Andalusia. My pic of a courtyard in the Alcazar in Seville is Mudejar. In Moorish architecture, it was usual to use scavenged old Roman columns for their new buildings. Saturday, November 5. 2016Bastiat's famous Candlemaker's Petitionh/t to Kevin Williamson's piece on government as the nation's cheesemonger. Crazy that those tons of cheddar will end of up dumpsters when so many would be happy to buy it at a cheap price..
Posted by The News Junkie
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13:42
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Friday, November 4. 2016Rentier CapitalismIs there such a thing as unearned income? Around the turn of the last century, Veblen considered the financial business and real estate: Rentier Capitalism – Veblen in the 21st Century:
Posted by The Barrister
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14:20
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Thursday, November 3. 2016Moorish design and Marble PlasterIt was a convention of Moorish design to decorate the heck out of walls, with maybe 5-6' of colorful geometric ceramic tiles from the floor, then rising to the ceiling with intricate carved-looking walls which often have some Koranic verses in them. This from the Alcazar in Seville:
I learned three things about Moorish upper-wall treatment: - This is not stone. It is marble plaster. This is my pic of a plaster wall in the palace in the Alhambra.
Wednesday, November 2. 2016I and Thou
David Brooks somehow tries to connect the Buber view with the politics of today and produces pure silliness. "Thous at every level"? Please, enough with the sanctimony. This is politics, which is war at every level. Tuesday, November 1. 2016The male heart
I have not met Gerard but I feel like I sort-of know him. Naturally, I do not like him because he is more clever than I am, and a gifted writer. Reading that confession reminded me that this was perhaps just the first time he was saved from imminent death. The second time was when his heart (again) gave out on a sidewalk where he was rescued by passers by. The male heart is a fragile thing.
Posted by Bird Dog
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14:58
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Monday, October 31. 2016All Hallow's EveFrom a Yalie (h/t, reader), We’re A Culture, Not A Costume:
Posted by The Barrister
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16:04
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Sunday, October 30. 2016Multi-faceted genius: Frederick Law OlmsteadHow can one evaluate a landscape architect whose greatest achievement was to create the profession of landscape architecture itself? He was a prolific and graceful author too. A quote from the article:
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:33
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Saturday, October 29. 2016What is honor?
A quaint topic, isn't it? To us it is not quaint. Manly Honor: What Is Honor?
Posted by The News Junkie
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12:56
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Friday, October 28. 2016Big Tunnel
I once drove over the St. Bernard Pass. Dramatic drive for sure. This is a train tunnel.
Posted by The Barrister
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13:56
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Toxic TestosteroneReclaiming Toxic Masculinity. One quote:
Anybody with the Y chromosome can be male, but it's not easy to be a man. It is, in fact, a lofty goal depending on your definition. Like most guys, I measure myself against my father and my peers in terms of success, strength, integrity, religious progress, friendships, knowledge, good cheer, self-restraint, seeking responsibility and independence, courage, etc. Not saying these are distinctly male aspirations, just that it's hard to be an adult person and it is not easy to become a man.
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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12:34
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Thursday, October 27. 2016Museum of the City of New York
They currently have a show on Ros Chast's cartoons. I get a kick out of them.
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:35
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Tuesday, October 25. 2016Bad Science
The Inevitable Evolution of Bad Science - A simulation shows how the incentives of modern academia naturally select for weaker and less reliable results.
Posted by The Barrister
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13:49
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Monday, October 24. 2016American architecture: Greek RevivalTook this pic of a grand pair of early 19th C. houses in downtown Nantucket. For some reason, I always expect to see a funeral home sign in front of Greek Revivals. Merchants or sea captains? I forget. Nantucket went through a brief period of prosperity then, not to see wealth again until its fashionable real estate boom since the 1970s: NYC money, mostly. Interestingly, Greek Revival architecture was introduced to Greece by Greece's early 19th C. monarchs, King Otto from Bavaria and King George from Denmark. - Ah, yes. Reader reminds me that these homes were built by the Starbuck family. Great name. Here's a more humble Greek Revival from the same era in Nantucket, which I found for sale on line today for a lousy $1.2 million:
Posted by Bird Dog
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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05:00
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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
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16:40
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