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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Saturday, January 2. 2016Tolerance for ambiguity
What's your tolerance of ambiguity? Tolerance For Ambiguity My score was 79, but I don't know what that means. Is 100 high tolerance for ambiguity?
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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15:43
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How many plots are there?
A wonderful topic, often discussed: All Stories Are the Same - From Avatar to The Wizard of Oz, Aristotle to Shakespeare, there’s one clear form that dramatic storytelling has followed since its inception.
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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14:01
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Thursday, December 31. 2015Sapiens
Posted by The Barrister
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13:21
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Sunday, December 27. 2015A few Sunday linksChristmas Eve in the Ardennes 1944 In Celebration of Modest Christmases Past - When families had less, when America had less, a single gift could make a lasting impression. Christmas Isn't Candy Canes—It's D-Day in the War Against Satan Why Children Get Gifts on Christmas: A History A Golden Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown
Posted by Bird Dog
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06:13
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Saturday, December 26. 2015A Feminism Fallacy Fest
Posted by The Barrister
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14:02
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Thursday, December 24. 2015Looking Forward to 2016
It's very easy to look ahead and expect the worst. We could enter 2016 with low expectations. There are plenty of negative trends going on in the world. When aren't there negative trends? I can't remember a single year where life was rosy, bright and promising without a hint of clouds. Some of the less encouraging new years I remember were 2000 (that nasty Y2K bug which did so much damage), 1980 (Iranian hostages and an election...the Winter Olympic Miracle on Ice was still to come), 1988 (after the market crash, people were very uptight) and 2009 (again a market crash, the mortgage meltdown and the election of a president bent on dividing the nation as he claimed to unify it). Even in these years, there were many positives which were overlooked. Needless to say, we passed through all those years without seeing everything fall to pieces. Which isn't to say some things haven't gotten worse. If all we do is focus on what's worse, though, it is hard to see how life gotten better. Yet it has. Hans Rosling spends much time discussing this (and his videos are always worth posting again): 2016 won't be sweetness and light, the news lately has had plenty of negativity. ISIS and the growth of fascism driven by Islamic radicals, Bernie Sanders and socialist wonderland driven by his belief in mythological theories which have been discredited time and again, an overbought stock market fueled by easy money, a dollar that is the prettiest horse in the glue factory, a Fed which is raising rates because it has no choice after keeping them low too long. There's plenty of bad out there to worry about. 2016 could still be pretty good. We may worry the so-called recovery is likely to end badly, though I hesitate to say it will be in 2016. It could've, and should've, ended many times in the past 6 years. But since it isn't a real recovery, more of a muddling along, maybe there hasn't been anything to 'end'. Even though it's been a pale 'recovery', plenty of good events have occurred.
Continue reading "Looking Forward to 2016"
Posted by Bulldog
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18:42
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Wednesday, December 23. 2015How Do We Make Society Better?Tuesday, December 22. 2015Dressage, minus horsies
Posted by Bird Dog
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18:31
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Monday, December 21. 2015Why Are We Disappointed in the Next Generation?
On the other hand, there is a reason to be disappointed when the issue revolves around responsibility and entitlement. Some claim this is a standard complaint from generation to generation. Perhaps it is, though I don't remember my parents consistently commenting about the work ethic or willingness of any of my friends to think and act responsibly. There were moments when singular behaviors led to stern conversations about smoking, or drinking and how 'kids aren't like they were'. Of course, I'd later hear my parents tell humorous stories of their own proclivities as adolescents and young adults. Some behaviors and complaints do travel across eras. My parents taught me to work. They instilled an understanding that I'm responsible for myself, and my family, and I need to earn the income to fulfill that responsibility in a dutiful fashion. I began seeing a therapist recently to work through some job-related concerns I have. She keeps using the terms "thoughtful" and "caring" about stories I recount. I always make a face and say "it's an obligation." Maybe some of the things I do are thoughtful and caring. I prefer to think I'm living up to my obligations. Others can think what they want about my motivations. I don't consider an obligation a negative. Like all things in life, there is a price. Obligations are prices with positive feedback loops. Live up to them, and you're trustworthy and should earn a level of respect.
Continue reading "Why Are We Disappointed in the Next Generation?"
Posted by Bulldog
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17:23
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Sunday, December 20. 2015Lowbrow, Middlebrow, and HighbrowIt is always a fun topic. I view myself as middlebrow in taste and capacity for appreciation but with aspirations to fuller and deeper appreciation of the finer things. There are 1000 things I'd rather do than to go to a NASCAR event. Call me a snob, but it is of no interest to me although I love to drive fast and have a string of tickets and an auto insurance bill to prove it. Bread and circuses for the people? Well, I want everybody to have whatever sort of fun they choose. The death of High Culture has been announced forever, but I don't even know what it is. Is Picasso high culture? Is Puccini high culture? (Definitely not - too much fun). Is Bob Dylan lowbrow folk-rock? Is The Messiah pop schlock? (Many feel it is, but I love it). Joseph Epstein: Whatever Happened to High Culture? An inquest In the end, I think that such distinctions are about how generally accessible creative endeavors are, and how much instruction and thought might be useful to engage with them. Reverence towards such things is silly though, I feel. The Mona Lisa? Give me a break but OK, he was an all-round genius and genius is rare and wonderful. Refined tastes? I can get on board with that, to a degree. There are many things in mass culture and pop culture that offend my delicate sensibilities and which seem vulgar to me, but I let it go. To each, his own. Live and let live.
Posted by The Barrister
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13:28
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GiftsFor my doctors, lawyers, colleagues, and other remote pals: Holiday Cheesecakes. Would send one to our Webmeister but do not have his new address. It's old-fashioned, but who does not love getting festive food treats in the mail? For garbage guy, $50. For mailman, $50. Gotta thank those guys personally for their work. Sure, they get paid, but I mean personally. Then comes my list of charities which I will not list other than a plug for Salvation Army. This year, I am giving to FIRE instead of to my schools. Much better educational use of my hard-earned dollars now and in the future. All of my alma maters have gone to the dark side, and they do not need my money anyway. They have billions in the bank.
Posted by The Barrister
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11:49
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Saturday, December 19. 2015Christmas Goose, La Vigilia di Natale, and some other Christmas foodFrom our archives: Christmas is a traditional feast day (but it was not for true puritan folk like Dutch Reform or Congregationalists, who did not historically care for Christmas), so you are expected to cook something tasty. We have done all of the things: turkey (again), goose, roast beef, crown roast of pork with apple stuffing (real good). On the other hand, the southern Italians do a cool thing - they do the Christmas Eve fish dinner - because it is a vigilia di magro (fasting, Italian-style).That is darn good. Fried baccala, fried calamari, scungilli, clams, mussels, maybe lobster etc etc. I love the baccala, and those little fried minnows bagiggi - smelt - with lemon that you eat whole like french fries, and clams (if they aren't cooked), but hate those cold seafood salads - dolphin food. In Sicily, the tradition is seven fishes. Serious abstinence: cook a leg of lamb, and you burn in hell for eternity. But back to Yankee Christmas dinner, and goose. As regular readers know, we cook our Canada geese with the breast only, marinated and sauteed rare. We confit the legs and thighs. Store-bought goose tends much smaller (maybe in Dickens' time they had bigger farm geese - if you can find a giant Christmas goose as big as Tiny Tim, great), and has lots more fat on it. In fact, it seems about 50% fat, which oozes out during cooking and fills the pan below. If you want to cook that traditional English bird, you need a few of them. I would say, one per 3-4 people, minimum, if you are using the supermarket birds. (Some might disagree with this.) One bird will not do it, as a turkey does, because once the fat melts off, there isn't much left except bones. The plus side of all of the fat is that they are self-basting. This is a good approach. Overcooking a goose, at low heat, is not a bad idea. For a roast goose, you may really want the meat falling off the bone, unlike a nice rare breast of wild goose. Goose is, of course, a dark meat like duck (but more coarse in flavor, I think). Make a tasty sauce out of the drippings, once you have removed the fat. Add a little red wine, maybe a handful of huckleberries or dried cranberries and a bit of sugar, and reduce/thicken. What to serve with goose? Mainly braised and sauteed roots. Parsnip, carrot, potato, turnip. And how about a rutabaga puree? Or a celeriac (celery root) puree? Maybe a pile of braised, sauteed baby squash, too. Cranberry sauce? You bet.
Posted by Bird Dog
in Food and Drink, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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16:47
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Friday, December 18. 2015GomerMediYou are probably aware that "gomer" is a technical medical term for an elderly human with too many chronic medical problems, usually including cognitive decline. The female term is "gomere." It's an acronym for "Get Out of My Emergency Room." In the classic black-humor but realistic medical memoir of an internal medicine internship (House of God - which was Mass General I believe but sort-of named after NYC's Mount Sinai), the phrase "Gomers go to ground" was popularized. The idea is that gomers always find a way to fall - while walking, falling off a gurney, falling out of bed, having mini-strokes or heart attacks, falling off the toilet, falling out of wheelchairs, etc. Victims of gravity and decay. If you read the book you will never want to get near a famous teaching hospital. There is plenty of sex with nurses, chaplains, and social workers, etc in it, which is sort-of an intern ritual and the gals are all hot for fresh young interns. At Amazon:
Thus I found it amusing to see this sign in La Gomera last month (I will post my pics of La Gomera and Tenerife when I get to it): Correction: Reader is right I think. Boston's Beth Israel.
Posted by Bird Dog
in Medical, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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18:06
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Looking aroundFrom Seinfeld: Men\Women Jokes: "I bet women would like to know what men are really thinking: The Truth, the honest Truth of what men are really thinking... Cause I could tell ya! Would you like to know?! Alright I'll tell you: NOTHING!! We're not thinking anything... We're just walking around, looking around... This is the only natural inclination of Man! We're just gonna check stuff out." Pic: The Jeronimos Monastery, Belem, Portugal last month
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:12
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Tuesday, December 15. 2015The technocratic delusion: The Tyranny of ExpertsEconomist Bill Easterly on outside experts and their terrible effects. Never trust do-gooders. Furthermore, "poor" is a Western concept imposed on people, conceptual imperialism. Material "poverty" is normal and not necessarily a terrible thing. Same goes for power and dictatorships and kingdoms. Individual Freedom and Material Prosperity are Western ideals, not universal ideals. Are Eskimos "poor"? Spiritual poverty is not normal. Prof. Easterly seems like a very well-intentioned fellow, but Easterly is a cultural imperialist.
Posted by The News Junkie
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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17:02
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Monday, December 14. 2015A Child's Christmas in Wales - The movieh/t Reader
Posted by Bird Dog
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15:39
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Advice to young men about how to dress
Posted by The Barrister
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14:36
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Regional Slang
For several years, she insisted this was a saying that was distinctly Philadelphian in nature. This seems to have been confirmed when we were speaking with several friends of ours who were from Philly and she asked "do you know what the back way means?" They all nodded and the conversation then revolved around how "the back way" is defined. Every region has some kind of slang. In California, it seems every highway has "the" in front of it. "The 405 to the 10 to the 110" was one set of directions I used whenever I was visiting clients. Visiting Boston College, I learned not to order milkshakes or subs, but frappes and grinders. Being from Philadelphia, it took me years to stop asking for hoagies and asking after "youse guys", but I still go "down the shore" (another phrase which drives my wife nuts - living on Long Island, she always went to the beach and despite the beach being south of her, she "went to the beach"), and "Yo" is still part of my vocabulary. For my wife, the torture of the regional slang is only made worse by the fact I've managed to convince both my boys to enjoy certain foodstuffs, like the Philly Cheesesteak (we take ours 'wit' - never 'witout') and Taylor Pork Roll (technically a NJ thing, but a staple down the shore). Of course, neither has succumbed to my great longing for Habbersett's Scrapple, the mere mention of which causes her nose to wrinkle in disgust. What slang and/or foods do our readers enjoy wherever they are?
Posted by Bulldog
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11:18
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Saturday, December 12. 2015Keeping it simple in holiday season
- My fairly large extended (sibs and their kids) agreed years ago on a no-presents policy. That makes a family gathering more like Thanksgiving. Good. You can only bring wine or homemade cookies. - Once kids reach 18, minimal presents. A winter coat, or boots, a book, or a framed photo, or similar. Presents are for kids. Youth will always appreciate money. though. - I refuse to throw a Christmas party. It's just too much. Thus the Marital Veto is exercised. I am usually happy to throw a party, but not now. - Christmas cards? They can go out late - or wait until next year. Who cares? We do not have a good family photo to use this year. - Mrs. BD and I like to give each other a thing to do, to share, like a trip, a long-weekend away someplace nice, or an exercise program. My kids give me a stinky cheese. Perfect. When they get rich, they can give me caviar and rare stinky cheeses. - The Tree. Mine keeps getting smaller despite protestations from the youth. Too bad. To keep it simple, I keep all of the tree ornaments in a chest in the living room, and I throw the lights in the trash every year. CVS has new. - One party per night. Party-hopping wearies me. - Church. We get there. It makes all the difference. What do you do to keep it simple?
Posted by Bird Dog
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15:39
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C S Lewis on stageThe Pearl Theater (NYC) is presenting four Lewis pieces adapted to the stage, produced by the Fellowship for the Performing Arts. We have seen the Screwtape, and saw The Great Divorce last Sunday. On Sunday afternoon, the Divorce sold out. After the matinee, I strolled around a festive 10th Ave (photo) and met a daughter at Marseille for cocktails and supper. In that area, we are partial to the cozy (but loud) West Bank Cafe but Marseille was excellent. After early supper, said daughter and I took a long walk around midtown. Not shopping, just walking around and discussing film scripts - and whether a good plot can be dumped into any setting, in any point in time - past, present, or future. We agreed that it can. Plot first, setting second. The story is the meat, the setting is the flavoring. That might be wrong in many cases, though. Star Wars, for example, and other spectacle-centered productions don't need interesting plots. Manhattan at Christmastime is festive, jammed, and merry. Just plain wonderful. That's the setting: the plot is the birth of Jesus.
Posted by Bird Dog
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14:55
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Thursday, December 10. 2015WHY YOUR COWORKERS ARE SLACKERS
I have noticed the same tendency in myself on occasion, and hated myself for it. Some self-loathing can be the price of self-knowledge. It is easier to forgive the faults and flaws of others than one's own.
Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss
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16:05
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Material poverty is the human normalMaterial wealth and comfort is an aberration. Sowell on Wealth, Poverty, and Politic. Entertaining.
Posted by The News Junkie
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14:07
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Monday, December 7. 2015Dr. Ted Dalrymple sounds depressed
Maybe he should not have retired, but that's what Brits do. It's their culture, to be pensioners. His post-retirement career, as commenter and thinker, has been a fine contribution to the world. I know what he needs, and it's not pills. He needs to get to the gym and to begin working out hard. Rage, rage....One hour of intense physical effort daily is good for attitude and mental health, and fends off the feeling of aging along with some of its physical effects. Pic is the gym at our hotel last month in Puerto de la Cruz after we disembarked: the comfortable Hotel Botanico. After we hiked all over town for four hours, I spent a "relaxing" hour and a half in there before dinner. Nice gym. No gym music.
Posted by Bird Dog
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18:20
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Saturday, December 5. 2015What Really Scares Helicopter Parents
Megan McArdle has some thoughts about the economics of overly-involved parenting.
Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
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15:15
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Gibe, Jibe, and Jive
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