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.
As she says, it's not from The Onion. The guy in the video is smart but pitifully emasculated. I guess it goes with the territory. Every assertion he makes ends with a question mark. Lame, and not a word about education.
I have written about the history of the concept of retirement several times, over the years. Basically, I tend to believe that retirement is a bad idea for body and soul. My house painter is 74, and he claims work keeps him young and permits him to take better trips than he could otherwise afford.
“Did you kill any babies, Bruce?” As we lay in bed on New Year’s Eve 1970, this is what the girl asked who a friend had introduced me to when I returned from Vietnam a couple of months before. I got up and drove home in the snowy streets from Queens to Brooklyn. I didn’t even try to date another girl for almost a year after. But, I moved past it and didn’t dwell on that night.
Some returned soldiers and Marines had worse experiences and some had better and almost all just blended back in after an initial adjustment. Studies show that most were more successful in their lives than their non-serving peers. But, what the major media and liberal opinion-setters painted was an image, usually grossly ignorant and mendacious, of a mentally and morally scarred Vietnam veteran. The purpose was to reduce support for the US commitment to South Vietnam. It took several decades before this image from the Left was reversed and due pride in veterans’ service returned to America. Yet, that erroneous and harmful image of Vietnam veterans still lingers in many minds.
Aside from the opprobrium poured upon us Vietnam veterans from the Left in the pop culture and academia, the goal of our war was lost and we had little reason to exhibit pride in the outcome of our service as millions of IndoChinese were murdered by the conquering communists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The perfidy of so many of our Senators and Congressmen, and the indifference of most opinion-leaders, only deepened the alienation from authority, and increased the vulnerability to the anti-Vietnam messagers.
That’s what the fall of Saigon has to do with the life paths of Vietnam veterans.
Rarely do two books appear on widely different aspects of the Vietnam War which based on meticulous research weave an understanding of the still confusing Vietnam War that, as Paul Harvey used to say, tells us “the rest of the story.”
Pr(A|X) = Chance of having cancer (A) given a positive test (X).
This is what we want to know: How likely is it to have cancer with a
positive result? In our case it was 7.8%.
Pr(X|A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that you had cancer (A). This is the chance of a true positive, 80% in our case.
Pr(A) = Chance of having cancer (1%).
Pr(~A) = Chance of not having cancer (99%).
Pr(X|~A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that you didn’t have cancer (~A). This is a false positive, 9.6% in our case.
Diamonds are not scarce, are not investments (they depreciate), and are no more "forever" than any other rock. Their popularity as stones in engagement rings dates to the 1930s with DeBeers' very effective marketing campaign.
We covet diamonds in America for a simple reason: the company that stands to profit from diamond sales decided that we should. De Beers’ marketing campaign single-handedly made diamond rings the measure of one’s success in America. Despite its complete lack of inherent value, the company manufactured an image of diamonds as a status symbol. And to keep the price of diamonds high, despite the abundance of new diamond finds, De Beers executed the most effective monopoly of the 20th century. Okay, we get it De Beers, you guys are really good at business!
De Beers believes that a fellow should spend two month's income on a diamond. Wiki has a brief history of engagement rings and wedding rings.
Carpe Diem recommends fake diamonds, and real love and reliable companionship.
Mrs. BD gave me an early Father's Day/Anniversary present two weeks ago, and it pleased me greatly. It was five (legal) strong and energetic Mexican yard guys for 9 hours to clean up various unpleasant outdoor messes which had gotten out of control around the semi-elegant but rusticated Maggie's HQ.
If you knew me personally, you would know that I naturally worked alongside of them all day (with chain saw mostly, and some carrying of firewood, rocks, and branches), tipped them with $20 each, and gave them cold Coronas with lime slices at the end of the day. They arrived at 8 am with chipper, giant dumpster, tools, grass seed, hay, weed-whackers, an industrial tiller, etc.
Among other tasks, we cleared out almost 1/5 acre of weeds and dying shrubs and trees, removed roots and stumps, removed evil porcelain berry vines, thinned out some of my older spruce and cedar plantings, cut firewood out of some trees and large branches fallen from Sandy, shrunk my vegetable garden by 1/2, tilled, raked, and planted grass. While I tend to be opposed to lawns on principle, it was the only way to make this particular area not look like crap. Luckily, it has been cool and rainy almost every other day since we finished and the grass is coming in nicely. Thanks to global cooling, it's cool, windy, and rainy yet again today. Grass loves cool and wet.
Feels like Ireland up here. I like it. Got a sweet-smelling fir-log fire going right next to me as I type.
What a good present that day was. Thanks, Mrs. BD. These guys work as hard as I do, but they have bigger muscles. Well, I spent most of this past weekend trimming all of the hedges and misc. gardening, weeding, log-splitting, and transplanting at the direction of Mrs. BD. Are gardens ever done? Never. I do all of the outdoor work I have time to do. It's good exercise and the results can be gratifying. Next weekend, I plan to do the necessary lawn plugging but not, of course, on the new area.
Owning properties is an endless war against nature and her insidious Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Now I just need those 5 guys for one more day because I still have a to-do list and I need a dump truck load of mulch and a truck load of fresh driveway gravel. Maybe next Spring?
Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) wrote "Oh, Susanna," "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)," "De Camptown Races," "Old Black Joe," "Beautiful Dreamer," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "Hard Times," - and lots more.
Where would the American songbook be without him? Nowhere.
Here's his Wikipedia listing. It's the usual: made pennies from his songs, died drunk and alone in New York City. Only visited the deep South briefly, once, on his honeymoon.
Photos of his German piano teacher in Pittsburgh, his first guitar, and the first piano he played, here.
Why the Swanee River? It fit the meter and the feeling. Here's "Old Folks at Home," a true heart-breaker of a sentimental popular song, with a lovely simple tune, as Foster wrote it in NYC for the minstrel shows.
With up to 40% of American kids being born today to single mothers, often with neither alimony nor meaningful child support, alimony, like marriage, is irrelevant to the lives of many Americans today.
Some states are ending lifetime alimony. One must wonder to what extent the risk of alimony is a deterrent to marriage. (It certainly can be a deterrent to divorce, at least for a while).
Nevertheless, there surely seem to be a lot more two-income households today than there were in the 50s (even though many women did work outside the home then). However, in the 50s there were almost no single moms other than widows. It was considered shameful.
Women married to functional men take jobs not as a matter of economic necessity usually, or as a matter of personal fulfillment. It's usually a matter of people wanting an economically-higher standard of living, better financial security, or the ability to pay escalating tuitions and housing costs.
Writers, like talkers, like to tell stories, and most people enjoy well-told stories. A well-told story is a wonderful thing in life, especially because most of our lives are made of humdrum stories - at least on the surface. The most revelatory stories can be touchstones for a life, eg the Bible stories.
Gerard posted a snippet of the best-told story in American history. It won't make you "good", but it's at least as rich as sausage gravy. I should say, as rich as spermaceti.
I grew up down the road from Bernstein's weekend house. My Mom was friends with Mrs. B. and I recall that they did garden designing together. A gay friend of mine who had met him at a party acknowledged that Lenny was "as gay as a Christmas Tree", but I guess he and Mrs. B. worked it out somehow and they had three kids.
Who cares about that? Bernstein was a rock star, and contributed a heck of a lot to American culture. As best I can recall, I only heard him conduct the New York once in youth, but I wouldn't know the difference anyway. Conductors do their interesting work in rehearsal, not on stage. If you want to learn about music performance, attend a rehearsal instead of the final performance.
He loved Mahler. When he grew older, Bernstein devoted himself to musical education. His Young People's Concerts on youtube are valuable to any adult. They were always sold out in NYC. Here's one of his Young People's Concerts at Carnegie Hall:
Bernstein claimed that Copland was his real teacher. West Side Story had to be one of his composing masterpieces, an opera, it is Romeo and Juliet:
Boys are more at risk than girls in the U.S. educational system. A MetLife study stated, "Girls appear to have an advantage over boys in terms of their future plans, teacher's expectations, everyday experiences at school and interactions in the classroom." Boys are less engaged in school, and less engagement means less success in the classroom; in fact, engagement with school is probably the single most important factor of academic success. Boys are more likely than girls to come to school without supplies and without doing their homework. Why aren't boys more engaged in school? According to Sommers, "schools today tend to be run by women for girls. Classrooms can be hostile environments for boys. They like action, competition and adventure stories. Those are not in favor. Games like tag and dodgeball are out; tug of war has become tug of peace, and male heroes have been replaced by Girl Power." Boys receive lower marks from female teachers, according to research done for the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance.
American schools are designed for scholars, and gals. The average guy just does not like to do as he is told, especially by a female. Furthermore, many guys like manual work. It feels good.
Gather 'round, friends, and let me tell you of the most wonderful, relaxing three months I've ever spent in my life.
It was at beautiful Camp Elmwood.
It doesn't take much to set the scene (see accompanying photo). A few acres way on the outside of the S.F. Bay Area with a rolling terrain of paths and camp buildings with lush green lawn everywhere you looked, all safely fenced off to keep the vagabonds and ruffians at bay. The weather was splendid (I was there in the Spring) with crisp mornings and warm afternoons. The atmosphere of the camp was invigorating. It was fresh. It was alive.
And just why am I telling you about beautiful Camp Elmwood?
At dinner Friday night I was chatting with a lady about all of the farm stands that were here in Connecticut when I was growing up. Every truck farm had one: a rickety structure on the roadside with a little dusty space to pull up on, with baskets of eggs, tomatoes, corn, eggplant, red and green peppers, cut flowers, potatoes, apples. melon, raspberries, blackberries, turnips, bundles of fresh herbs, honey, dried strawflowers, giant Sunflowers, squash, pumpkins, corn stalks for fall decorations - whatever was ready that day.
Business, if steady, was never sufficient to justify manning these roadside booths. They usually had the prices written on pieces of cardboard, and one of those large mason jars to leave your money in.
The nice lady told me that Holbrook Farm in Redding, CT still uses the honor system, but not during the height of the season when things are too busy. Hearing that cheered me very much.
No spy cameras either - just good old-fashioned American country-style trust in one's neighbor. I do not think I would like to live in a place where a shop could't have an honor system, but I guess credit cards and sales tax collection complicate things these days.
Let's talk about how smart women are for a minute. There have been many very smart women throughout history. First there was Joan of Arc, who was burned alive at the stake, then there was Madame Curie, who irradiated herself to death, then there was Amelia Earhart, who died in a plane crash, then there was, um..., oh, Susan B. Anthony, who was so famous they named a $1 coin after her.
Smart women, all!
Pic: Artist's concept of what smart women think about
Well, under the same heading, I just love what this lady did. It goes to the very core of pragmatism.
To wit:
You're a cigarette smoker. You're seriously hooked. You've tried everything to stop, but you just keep failing.
Last Tuesday, 5-foot 1-inch Lopez went up to Sacramento County sheriff’s Deputy Matt Campoy outside the main jail and slapped him in the face, apparently for no reason. He grabbed the woman and took her inside the jail, where she again slapped his arm as soon as he turned her loose. Confused, Campos handcuffed her again, and that’s when the woman told him she had picked him because he was in uniform and she knew getting arrested was the only way for her to quit smoking, as tobacco is forbidden in prison.
When it comes to your health, you just gotta do what you just gotta do.
I was actually surprised how many commenters took the "Moron!" approach. I thought it was brilliant and daring. And the blotch on her 'permanent record' really won't make any big dif in the future, and any lawyer could get it expunged. But that week or two she spends in the hoosegow might make a very big difference when her grandchildren have a grandmother around to love and grow up with.
Well, now that we've got that 'smart' stuff out of the way, let's get down to the intrinsic, elemental, key role women play in the interwoven society of modern day life and what they bring to the table:
Boobies.
No, wait...
Other stuff and boobies. Right, that's it. I mean, I wouldn't want to shortchange the other body parts. That just wouldn't be manly.
And, speaking of boobies, what does a man really, really hunger for in life?
Good food.
Good food surrounded by pleasant women who, as we've already proven, can be quite smart. You combine your smarts with hers, your wallet with her good looks (to make up for the lack of yours), and we're talkin' an equal deal here with no 'objectification' in sight.
Our friend at the Q&O site is having problems with his semi-expensive watch, so I thought I'd repost this.
We posted a while ago about expensive watches, Vacheron Constantin, Patek Phillippe, and all that. I've had a couple of moderately-expensive ones over the years but over time the repair and maintenance seemed foolish and, sad to say, an Accutron cannot be effectively repaired anymore.
As cheap watches go, I don't like digital watches. I like to see the sweep of time.
When I last went for a dreaded and long-delayed medical check up on the insistence of Mrs. BD, I noticed that my fancy doc wore the same one I did - a Timex Expedition. They are good for about ten years or more, and when you need to replace the leather band it comes with with a nice leather band, the band costs 3X more than the watch.
Any watch I wear gets banged around quite a bit, but I feel naked without one. Are they male jewelry, social signals, or are they tools?
Amazon sells them, real cheap. $31. That is indeed a fashion statement: it declares that you are a sensible person.
Surely not by our bourgeois standards. Given the human brain and the human adaptability which is a gift from the most creative of us over the past 150,000 years, I think it's impossible to say what is "natural" for people other than to claim that it is natural for humans to make things and to live in cultures.
Are Savages Noble? The parts about war and sex (naturally) are especially interesting. So I guess war and sex are natural, too.
Admittedly, some words become meaningless over time.
Buggy whip industry.
Herewith, I am going to spell out my own little list, dismantling each word in turn. While I'm aware some harsh critic could come along at any minute and point out how this is nothing more than an academic exercise in sophistry, solipsism and semantics, I'd like to go on record as stating that that's exactly what it is.
In a generally ascending order of interest and/or importance:
You might have heard of that social anarchist who runs Coyote Blog. I wrote a scathing exposé on this scurrilous scofflaw here.
As for coyotes, he seems to think they're a cute, cuddly bunch, but a Google search proves otherwise:
Well, this menace to society is back in the news, again preaching his particular brand of anarchy, this time against the very foundation of our language, and thus society, itself:
By the way, if anyone read the fabulous book "Barbarians and the Gate," they** will remember RJR Nabisco's construction of a...
[...]
** I know this is grammatically incorrect, but I am exhausted with English's lack of a third person singular gender-neutral pronoun and hate saying "he or she." English is a language built bottom up from actual usage, so lacking any better idea, I support "they" as the solution.
I've been using "they" in this regard for over 20 years.
In fact, you could even say that the subject is a part of blog history. As I note in my bio, I was 'blogging' on a daily basis on my BBS a decade before the word was coined. In one of the first pages I wrote for the board, the 'Welcome' page, I told everyone that they'd see two variations from standard English in my articles; using 'they' for 'he or she' and putting punctuation outside of quote marks. (I'll cover the latter some other time.) So it could be said that one of the first blogs in history mentioned this very subject. Twenty-two years ago.
Here's the famed James Taranto quoting other people in his daily column. James is a stickler for following the rules.
"But there's something disappointing in giving your sparring partner exactly what they [sic] want."
"Of course what Ferraro said is that "nobody is going to say they [sic] don't ..."
"Where a person lives, their [sic] immigration status or who they [sic] love should not ..."
"... if a black person killed a white person they [sic] were more likely ..."
"If a 5-year-old can't sit still, it is unlikely that they [sic] can do well in a kindergarten class ..."
What this is really saying is, Broken is okay. I'm sure James and associated sticklers would like to fix every other broken thing on the planet, but for some reason they happily exclude this one obvious blow-it from their agenda. The question for James is, Are you planning on doing this for the rest of time eternal?
Here's the bottom line:
They does not necessarily equal plural. And I can semi-prove it.
My very first week in the South, I was alone in a diner. The waitress walked up and asked, "How y'all doin' today?" The exact same thing happened at a different diner a few days later.
That's when I realized that y'all doesn't necessarily equal 'plural', and 'they', in this context, is no different. To refine it even further, you could say that 'he or she' is the they, because more than one person is involved.
Coyote got it exactly right. Unlike any other language on the planet, English was built; constructed; formed from a collage of many languages, even varying forms of English, itself, and is thus designed to change with the times as the building process continues. While a total bitch for the outsider to learn, we who are fluent in it are offered an immense, descriptive vocabulary that no other language comes close to. In many, if not most languages, the exact meaning of a spoken word is based upon inflection. In English, we have a whole different word for every single variation, and then we still have inflection for the nuance.
Put another way, using 'they' for a singular person might feel a little awkward, but [sic]'ing every use of it for the rest of time eternal sounds a lot more awkward.
Forbes Magazine has hailed it as the most lovely campus in the US. Maybe so. That's a tough call. It's a tiny campus on a hill in the middle of a very pleasant and serene rural "nowhere." Feels more like a New England prep school than a college. One thing I can say is that the kids they admit are committed to the life of the mind, and the faculty is committed to each kid in a personal way. A good combination indeed.
Rigorously-demanding, too. While most famous for their literary and theatrical pursuits (The Kenyon Review, plus Paul Newman and Jonathan Winters at the same time), Kenyon has the highest graduate admit rates to medical school in the US.
My pupette's poetry prof, to my delight, knew Elizabeth Hardwick who was one of my poetry profs (along with the brilliant and inspiring...wait for it...Edward Said. He was not doing Palestinian politics then). Cool.
All elitisms run the risk of inbreeding and sterility. The real benefit of a perceived equality among citizens, as driven by the rough and tumble of economic competition, is not only that it expands the wealth pie but also continuously changes the diners at the table. That means that some at the head table may never have the proper politically correct manners, but that is the price of vitality. The problem with socialism and its near cousins is that it places the selection of winners and losers (even if called “industrial policy”) in the hands of the status quo, who quite naturally will put their friends and family first in line.
Commencement Weekend, and those darn Mennonites hog all the best parking spots in front of the pubs. People tell me they are Amish, others say these people are Mennonites. Same idea.
These people believe our ordinary lives are foolish, vain, Godless, and empty. I can't swear that they are wrong, but they are just ordinary people too.
Diamonds are not scarce, are not investments (they depreciate), and are no more "forever" than any other rock. Their popularity as stones in engagement rings dates to the 1930s with DeBeers' very effective marketing campaign.
Mrs. BD gave me an early Father's Day/Anniversary present two weeks ago, and it pleased me greatly. It was five (legal) strong and energetic Mexican yard guys for 9 hours to clean up various unpleasant outdoor messes which had gotten out of control around the semi-elegant but rusticated Maggie's HQ.
Foster (1826-1864) wrote "Oh, Susanna," "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)," "De Camptown Races," "Old Black Joe," "Beautiful Dreamer," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "Hard Times," - and lots more.
Gather 'round, friends, and let me tell you of the most wonderful, relaxing three months I've ever spent in my life.
Let's talk about how smart women are for a minute. There have been many very smart women throughout history. First there was Joan of Arc, who was burned alive at the stake, then there was Madame Curie, who irradiated herself to death, then there was Amelia Earhart, who died in a plane crash, then there was, um..., oh, Susan B. Anthony, who was so famous they named a $1 coin after her.
