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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Friday, March 11. 2016Borders and Boundaries
I am absolutely opposed to illegal immigration. They are uninvited guests, crapping on our rules and laws. I know that most Dems and the Chamber of Commerce don't care - or want more, but I believe immigration law is a national decision. Laws already exist. They can be changed by Congress. I have no dislike of Mexicans or Guatemalans. All I ask is that they apply for residency and/or citizenship like everybody else. What the Western world can learn from the Moriori H/t American Digest. Their generosity was suicidal. Democrats Propose Lawlessness and Call It Immigration Policy How Immigration Reform Would Re-Form America - The devastating truth that's not being discussed by politicians or journalists. German Government Provides Sex Ed for Muslim Colonists German Government Provides Sex Ed for Muslim Colonists - See more at: http://moonbattery.com/?p=69796#sthash.Q2FjJGbS.dpuf
Wednesday, March 9. 2016Planning Stages: The 2016 Maggie's Farm NYC Urban HikeInstead of beginning at South Ferry, we're thinking about beginning somewhere in the Lower East Side, heading north thru Murray Hilll, cutting across to Central Park South and doing a hike through the entire length of Central Park to Harlem, and after that we're not sure. Might be fun to continue up Broadway, lunch in some Dominican joint in Washington Heights, all the way to the Cloisters, but that all might take too long. These are fun outings. We had a nice turn out last time - filled 3 tables in Little Italy for lunch. Need good shoes. We'll post details as soon as we settle them, and invite all interested hikers.
Posted by Bird Dog
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10:25
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Tuesday, March 8. 2016Urban DeathMonday, March 7. 2016Now for something completely different: Quonset HutsYou can't really obtain a sturdy, zero-maintenance dwelling or storage building cheaper than a Quonset Hut. Indestructible steel prefab housing, around $35,000. You put it on a slab. And if you hate plumbing as much as Sippican does, just build an outhouse out back, near the lilacs. After WW2, military surplus Quonsets were commonly seen. A family down the road from the farm raised their family in one, but it's been removed for many years. It had a wood stove. After the war, they were widely used as temporary housing for vets. They are easily insulated. They lack charm other than the rural ugly charm. Sometimes you can see ancient ones on rickety farms in New England used as spare mini-barns or garages. The US military first had them mass produced on Quonset Point, R.I. Hundreds of thousands of them were built. Advantages of Quonset Huts. New Quonset Huts for sale here.
Posted by Bird Dog
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18:34
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Saturday, March 5. 2016Yankee Attitude: "Tolerant," but from a distanceA dusty re-post - Unless they happen to be in the tourist trade or the mini-mart business, the Yankee native does not tend to welcome visitors to his corners of the woods. Maybe this applies to all of small-town USA. You get the feeling that the old families don't welcome out-of-towners, much less furriners. And whenever they see a New York license plate in town, they worry and grumble. I'm sorry, but it's just the way the folks are: "Please respect our space and our ways and we will try to tolerate yours as long as you keep them somewhere else." City people might term it parochial, but it's actually a strong sense of proprietorship and protectiveness towards something valuable - "Our town." I guess we like things as they are, or, preferably, as they were. The old-timers still refer to my place as "Peck's farm," even though old Amos Peck, the fourth generation on that land and a member of a founding family of the town, ascended to his reward in 1932 and his kids sold the old chicken and dairy farm to a dairy farmer down the road who was looking to expand his herd. One wonders whether there is a covert message in it: "You don't really belong there - you are just a transient with a mortgage." It takes two to three generations at minimum, I think, to get past being a newcomer. To be an old family, I'd guess five generations minimum. (That makes sense to me. It is an indication that your family might be committed to the town, and not just passing by the way people often do these days, viewing land as real estate rather than as a place to anchor for your future generations.) Yes, it's about different views of land and of "place". Ideally, your ancestors would have helped build our simple 1742 Meeting House/Congregational Church, which remains the only place of worship for seven miles. I have mentioned in the past that our modest place (which is one component of the abstraction which is Maggie's Farm) abuts the Farmington River in north-central CT, whose happy rippling and sighing I can hear from my pool and from my poolside hammock. We have eagles, ospreys, Wood Duck, trout (mostly stocked but with some sea-run I think), herring, and maybe soon we will have a return of fishable numbers of migratory Atlantic Salmon, thanks to the fish people. We canoe the river all the time, counting the herons and the Kingfishers, and cleaning garbage from the banks when we find it. But do not come here. We prefer it quiet and private. Photo above: A classic Yankee front door-mat. It does NOT apply to Maggie's Farm: you are the visitors that we welcome. Photo below: Fishing on the Farmington in early morning mist. �
Posted by The Barrister
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14:04
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Friday, March 4. 2016Life in America: Dental costs plus a comment on immigrants
My gas-mini mart place ("Eat Here and get Gas") is manned by a Haitian, 2 Mexicans, and a Dominican. 4 shifts but they often do double shifts. A nice Mexican gal worked a fill-in shift for a while, but quit because nights were too fatiguing for her with three kids at home. I am friendly with the Mexican guy and the ever-cheerful Haitian guy who is always trying to figure out how to get rich and move to Miami. He is a brother in Christ. I briefly trade life stories for a minute or two with those 2, and they save a left-over Sunday New York Times for me on Monday morning. Free, of course, on Monday. That Mexican guy has finally gotten off Oxycontin after two years of multiple leg repairs from his job in construction when he was in a ditch when a gas line exploded. Kept working through it all, in pain. He finally feels "pretty good, thank God." He has a noticeable gimp. He is legal, is trying to bring his wife and 2 kids to the US but has trouble paying the immigration lawyer. Has not seen his family for three years, sends them money. He lives in a small apartment with a cousin and brother, and the three share a small rusty 15 year-old Toyota. He is a sweet guy but he knows absolutely nothing about America beyond the citizenship test he had to take. Other than this job, he lives Mexican. The other day he asked me about the bruises on my jaw. "Dental surgery," I said. "Pain?" he asked. "For a while," I said, "but better now." He said he had a very bad tooth, broke it on a chicken bone. Told me that in Mexico the dentist would pull it for $25 or $50. In the US, $400. and if he needs a root canal, $1200., so he is waiting to deal with it. Dentistry is expensive. I told him about the couple of dental schools which have free clinics. Also, I told him that most dentists will give you a payment plan if you ask. After all, most people cannot walk in and put $4000 on their credit card, or write a $4000 check from their checking.
Posted by Bird Dog
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12:46
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Thursday, March 3. 2016Torque + weight vs. HorsepowerA modern John Deere tractor with 850 horsepower plays tug of war with an 1800s era steam tractor that has about 18 horsepower. While both are capable of getting an honest day's work done, there is only one that proves its dominance through sheer power.
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:00
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Wednesday, March 2. 2016Sooner or later
Mrs. BD and I have been moving her parents into an "Independent Living Senior Community" over the past month. (Ros Chast calls these places The Place, but I call them Old Folk's Homes.) Their new place is a one-bedroom apartment in a Senior complex in a suburban area less than a half-hour from us. The apartment is small, but they get the run of the place with its dining rooms (with 2 fireplaces), library (with fireplace), theater, patios, gym, meeting rooms, outdoor walking paths, etc. Their apartment has a small kitchen, large fancy bath, and a terrace to outdoors. You get three good meals, weekly cleaning and laundry, 24-hr handiman and 24-hr RN on duty. There are music concerts, movies, and good lectures all the time, religious services, plus of course Bingo and Mah Jong and all that. You can keep your car there, or they will drive you anywhere within 15 miles - included. That's all - no personal help unless you hire it on your own (which some residents do). These places are costly, but not necessarily a lot more costly that the cost of running and maintaining one's own home. The next step, if needed, is Assisted Living. Assisted Living places often have specialized Dementia sections. And then there are nursing homes, aka Skilled Nursing Facilities. Nobody ever wants to need those except temporarily to recover from something.
Posted by Bird Dog
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14:59
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Sunday, February 28. 201640 Mule Team BoraxFrom the driver's seat of a 40 mule team. These rigs were used to haul Borax out of Boron Ca. & then loaded onto railroads for manufacturing. All this so you could do the laundry! Nowadays, it's 20 Mule Team Borax. Well, maybe 40 mules = one twenty-mule team. I knew a mule once, named Charlie. He did not like to follow commands. An Irishman I knew walked up and told me to learn how to gain respect from a mule, and gave Charlie a left hook in the face along with a harsh talking-to. Mule remained a bit more docile for a few hours. Main thing with mules is that they have to be tired out - and do not feed them oats. Anyway, I do not mess with mules anymore.
Posted by Bird Dog
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19:53
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Saturday, February 27. 2016Chemistry of matches
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14:10
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Friday, February 26. 2016Attitude differences
But let's just say some of it generally applies, sometimes. Differences In Attitudes. Click on chart to biggify.
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:45
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Wednesday, February 24. 2016What Is The Universe Expanding Into?
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15:36
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Monday, February 22. 2016Trump and Kochs in NYC
Instead of tramping, I should have said "Trumping" around midtown. That is because The Donald was on our minds, and we must have passed ten buildings with his name on them. Not to mention the Plaza Hotel which he used to own. We kept laughing about it, and I laughed some more when we got to one of our favorite NYC lunch joints - Jean-Georges right off Columbus Circle. Wonderful prix-fixe luncheons. Damn if I had never noticed before that it is on the ground floor of The Trump International Hotel and Tower, southernmost building on Central Park West. View from our table, Central Park on left, Columbus Circle on right, mounted cop in center, construction cranes everywhere in the sky: Just a couple more pics below the fold. Marianne would have enjoyed all this. Continue reading "Trump and Kochs in NYC" Sunday, February 21. 2016The Unbearable Asymmetry of BullshitFrom the article:
I have a good bullshit detector. I am skeptical of everything, to a fault.
Posted by The Barrister
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14:51
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Books of interestAlbion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America The Name of the Rose. Eco died last week A THING OF THE PAST. Tessa Hadley's new book The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism Helen Smith considers that book here. I need it, but it might be too late for me.
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:50
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Friday, February 19. 2016A Bird Dog ancestral homestead: A slice of American lifeMy grandfather's first wife grew up in this wonderful farmhouse in New Hampshire. Her name was Mabel Porter, but I don't know what town this was in. I don't know the age of the photo either. She died childless of leukemia shortly after her marriage so she is not really an ancestor. Grandpa grew up on a farm in northern Connecticut, but became a bit of a dandy and a prominent cardiologist and found a second wife after a while but my guess is that Mabel was his true love (Run-on sentence). Her name was never mentioned after she died, and he always called his second wife "Mother." He focused only on his work. Grandma was a farm girl from Norwalk, Connecticut who became a teacher of immigrant schoolkids in Brooklyn. Mostly Jewish immigrants, she told me, but some Irish and Italian. They all had lice. Gramps met her when she was doing summer work at a resort he liked in Rhode Island. She bore Grandpa 2 very smart kids. Trees are the classic New England streetfront vase-shaped Elms, now, alas, mostly gone due to the blight. The Maggie's HQ has some architectural similarities.
Posted by Bird Dog
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17:39
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Tuesday, February 16. 2016Protestants, economics, the "Social Gospel," and the Progressive Movement
I think they were in over their heads then, and still are. But I could be wrong. The Z-Man would like this essay.
Posted by Bird Dog
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17:55
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Saturday, February 13. 2016Swany GlovesWhat gloves do you wear when skiing below zero? Seems like lots of people believe Swany makes the best gloves and mittens for any temperatures, for any outdoor activities. Little kids do best with mittens, not gloves. What do you like for cold weather hand gear?
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:44
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Wednesday, February 10. 2016How Oliver Sacks put a human face on the science of the mindHow Oliver Sacks put a human face on the science of the mind - The world’s most famous neurologist believed that every patient had a story worth hearing. A quote:
Tuesday, February 9. 2016The SS United States
Posted by Bird Dog
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20:54
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Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
I remember the difference by thinking that a transitive verb transfers the verb's force to something. Intransitives just exist. "I hit the ball" vs. "I exist." Lousy grammar bugs me and it bugs Ann Althouse: "The worst thing about Rubio's repeated line isn't that he repeated it, but that he thinks 'dispel' is an intransitive verb..." Actually, I think Rubio meant to say "dispense," and misspoke.
Posted by The Barrister
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15:20
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Sunday, February 7. 2016What classical Greek sculpture looked like Continuing with the theme of painted architecture and sculpture, a reminder that Greek temples and sculptures were always painted and sometimes gold-leafed too. All flaked off except for microscopic residues. The Roman admirers of Classical Greece did not get that memo, and the Renaissance sculptors didn't either. Probably because of that historical error, much or most stone and metal sculpture has been unpainted since the Renaissance. To modern eyes, the Pieta would look pretty nasty if painted in lifelike colors but the Greeks would have figured it was waiting for the paint. Parthenon Once a Riot of Color Below, the likely appearance of the Parthenon frieze
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:22
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Saturday, February 6. 2016Learned something interesting todayMrs. BD and I attended a lecture on Romanesque stone architecture at the Cloisters today. I've seen plenty of it in Europe and have read plenty about the style. I asked the expert whether the stone sculptures on lintels and columns in churches and cloisters had been painted. Definitely, she said. Columns were painted in primary colors. The church walls, so often plain limestone now, had been stuccoed and then plastered with frescoes. Over 1000 years it flaked off. I've seen reconstructions of the once-painted Greek sculpture and architecture. I'd like to see the same of Romanesque-era churches and cloisters. Photo is from Pórtico da Gloria, Santiago Cathedral. The colouring once common to much Romanesque sculpture has been preserved - via Wiki
Posted by Bird Dog
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16:33
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Friday, February 5. 2016Nutrition for heavy exerciseRegular (ie 3+ times/wk) strength-building exercise requires some extra dietary protein for muscle repair and building. I would include plyometric exercises in that category along with heavy, difficult resistance work, but not low-weight high-rep work. On the other hand, people focusing on general fitness/endurance/conditioning exercises like cardio (ie running, swimming, elliptical, rowing, jump rope, etc), calisthenics, and isometrics do not require any dietary adjustment assuming a normal varied diet. Obviously, if you lose too much weight, try to eat a little more of everything. People working on improving their overall fitness usually work on resistance work (weights) and general fitness on alternate days, usually about 1 hr/day. Thus they need some extra protein and fats in their diets to avoid muscle deterioration. Some pursuers of fitness also desire weight loss/flab loss. Despite what can be read on various sites ("Ten Great Fat-Burning Exercises"), exercise has only a little to do with that. It's 90% dietary, 10% exertion. I see some pudgeballs working out with weights and doing cardio almost daily, and over months they are just as pudgy. Stronger, no doubt. In my case (3 days pushing the resistance, plus usually 3 days of general fitness) I was losing too much weight and plateauing on my bench, squats, and deads, so had to up my protein and carbs. I had been probably too low on both. Not on purpose, just because I am not an avid eater. Since doing that, I've gained 5 or 6 lbs but my trousers are just as loose as before so it's mostly welcome muscle. A Diet and Exercise Plan to Lose Weight and Gain Muscle
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:54
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Thursday, February 4. 2016A Bosch FestivalDutch museum achieves the impossible with new Hieronymus Bosch show. To mark the artist’s 500th anniversary, the director of small Dutch museum secures 20 of 25 surviving panels by ‘the devil’s painter’ Sounds like it's worth a trip to Also, Bosch’s big bash Detail from the Haywain Triptych (1516)
Posted by Bird Dog
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19:37
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