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.
Recently, my alma mater Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh applied to join the ACC. Both were accepted. I had very mixed feelings. I attended Syracuse during the halcyon days of Big East Basketball. We were one of the original 3 Big East schools. We pulled the first major upset, beating Villanova for the Big East Tournament Championship in 1982 with a very mediocre squad. The Big East placed 3 teams in the Final Four in 1985, then 2 in the Final Four in 1987. The 1987 NCAA Championship saw Syracuse lose by a point in the final seconds as Indiana' Keith Smart nailed a jumper in the final seconds. Over the years, the Georgetown/Syracuse and the University of Connecticut/Syracuse rivalries have been heated and seen many legendary games. Syracuse's 6 overtime Big East Tournament victory over UConn in 2009 was the kind of game you only hope to see, and wind up telling your children about.
Big East men's basketball has had 6 NCAA Champions in the last 27 years. Women's basketball has seen many more, as the University of Connecticut Huskies have set a new standard for the term 'Excellence' when it comes to sporting achievements. In 32 years, it has won 28 championships in 6 different sports.
On the other hand, Big East football has seen very few important moments, has never really developed a strong following, and has not helped its best teams rise. In some respects, Big East football is a bit of a joke even though programs like UConn and Rutgers have managed to revive themselves. Over the years, it has been football that drives conference alignments because of the revenues involved.
As other conferences grew and focused on their revenues, the Big East played it safe. They lost Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech in 2005. Hardliners in the conference scoffed, and I count myself among them. There was no way the move would benefit those teams (it hasn't really, but they've done better than they would have in the Big East). The Big East was clumsy. It just couldn't get the job done for those schools, nor for the two which recently left.
Shh-hh. Are we alone? I'm going to do something here that I'm not sure any blogger has ever done before, and, in fact, might actually be some kind of digital misdemeanor. Or, at very least, break Blogger's Rule #1.
I thought I'd ask for your opinion on something before publishing the post.
Yes, yes, I know that sounds crazy, and perhaps it is. They've recently changed my psychotropic drugs here at the sanitarium (also affectionately known as "Maggie's Farm" by the regulars in honor of the sweet ol' gal who runs the place), and I've increased my caffeine intake of late, so perhaps I've lost that delicate chemicular balance required to write a modern blog post.
All I know is that I had such good luck when I suckered that first sap into proofreading it (I wouldn't want to mention any names, but his initials are B.U.L.L.D.O.G.), that I thought I'd open it up to the Maggie's Valued Readers™ for further input before hitting the 'Publish' button.
It's about one of everybody's favorite subjects:
Global warmening!
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd be posting my global warming opus soon, but I held off because I wanted to run it by a few people and make sure I was touching all the bases. I mean to cover everything in this baby.
For example, Bulldog reminded me of Mt. Kilimanjaro, which was one of the first jump-off points ("The glaciers are melting!") for the AGW movement. My article mentions the Thames freezing over in the early 1600's and he noted that the Hudson and Delaware rivers had also frozen over, and that reminded me of the Northwest Passage, another item on the AGW list that deserves to be shattered.
And, as many people will tell you, when it comes to shattering hopes and dreams, I'm just the guy for the job.
So, fellow (and fellowette) anti-AGW aficionados, what say ye? Corrections, updates and additions are welcome. Any pro-AGW dribble will be cited in a future post arguing for the return of 15th century insane asylums.
“The part of the universe we are part of will all collapse down into a giant super-galaxy and the stars in the super galaxy will slowly use up their nuclear fuel and turn into little stellar embers that just fade into oblivion. It will be a very cold, lonely universe in the future.”
Sheesh. Sounds like Maine. I blame climate change.
It's all about this "consumerism" rage in the past two decades.
Students are consumers of education, patients are consumers of medical care, citizens are consumers of government services, prisoners are consumers of rehabilitative services.
It's a strange point of view.
The notion that students evaluate profs as if school were American Idol seems perverted to me. School is not infotainment. I can be an entertaining speaker and did some litigation in my distant past, but I would never teach where my career, even in part, depended on student evaluations. When teaching, I like to be a demanding SOB, intolerant of anything short of excellence and keeping people on their toes. In the end, people are thankful for my demanding attitude.
Saw one yesterday, flitting slowly through some shrubs. You will occasionally see them in the winter everywhere in the eastern US, hunting for bug larvae.
Darker and maybe smaller than a House Wren (which cannot survive a northern winter), they tend to be quiet and secretive in the winter as they pick through brambles and wood piles in the snow. Tough little guys. Survivors.
The book remains a staple of children's literature. While the movie went through a remake in 2005, the original remains a classic. It has lines that are familiar to all who have seen it, and its songs still resonate.
An interesting side note about the author, Roald Dahl. He was a spy for Britain in the United States during World War II (along with several other well known personalities such as David Ogilvy). He spent quite a bit of time trolling the social circles of Washington and New York City, collecting information. During his time here, Dahl began writing and found his calling.
One hopes Charlie Bucket has managed his global empire properly and treats his Oompa-Loompas well. I haven't seen any in Zucotti Park.
It's the time of year when we re-link our world-famous Boots and Wellies opus as part of our series of All You Need to Know For Snow (and mud) season.
It's also a good time of year for another free advt for Sierra Trading Post. Good discount outdoor gear, plus sneakers, etc. Often, good deals on dress shoes and work shoes, too. Some folks collect knives, or guns, or knick-knacks. I collect boots because happy feet make for a happy man.
I also collect boots because, as many unhappy feet learned the hard way, your winter boot size is probably not your foot size. You will put your wool socks and maybe liner sox inside them if you plan to spend any real time in the cold.
You gotta size 'em for your socks and not for your feet, in the north.
The OWS movement embodies certain qualities which we don't seem to fully understand. It's neither a generational or an issue-driven movement. It lacks solutions. It has no direction or focus. There is a reason for this, defined many years ago by Eric Hoffer.
Hoffer was skeptical of mass movements, feeling they epitomized juvenile behaviors. He was able to determine why, pointing to a lack of self-esteem which the protesters exhibited. Hoffer felt self-esteem was critical in the development of adult behaviors. He outlined how widespread affluence and the rapid changes in modern society lead to a desire to attain adulthood more quickly, but with certain rites of puberty being shortchanged, particularly with regard to work and endeavor.
In his view an extended adolescence led many to seek outlets for their inability to define themselves. These people, lacking in self-identity, defined themselves as they saw themselves described by others. There was an intense self-loathing and guilt regarding position and place. This was a direct result of low self-esteem. Self-esteem was not being cultivated as many of those in protest movements didn't work, and were incapable of understanding their responsibilities. From this perspective, all mass movements were interchangeable, regardless of what they sought to promote.
Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled. ~Eric Hoffer
In aBangkokTemple: IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN, EVEN A FOREIGNER, IF DRESSED AS A MAN.
Cocktail lounge,Norway: LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.
Doctor's office,Rome: SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.
Dry cleaners,Bangkok: DROP YOUR TROUSERS HERE FOR THE BEST RESULTS.
In aNairobirestaurant: CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE, OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.
On the main road toMombasa, leavingNairobi: TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.
On a poster at Kencom: ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO WE CAN HELP.
In a City restaurant: OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK AND WEEKENDS. In a Cemetery: PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS, FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWNGRAVES.
Tokyo hotel's rules and regulations: GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE, OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.
On the menu of a Swiss Restaurant: OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.
In a Tokyo Bar: SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.
Hotel,Yugoslavia: THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE, IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
Hotel,Japan: YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
In the lobby of a Moscow Hotel, across from a Russian Orthodox Monastery: YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY, WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY, EXCEPT THURSDAY.
A sign posted inGermany'sBlack Forest: IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OURBLACKFORESTCAMPING SITE, THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT, UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.
Hotel,Zurich: BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.
Advertisement for donkey rides,Thailand: WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?
Airline ticket office,Copenhagen: WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS.
A Laundry inRome: LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND THEN SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.
And finally the all time classic: Seen in anAbu DhabiSouk shop window:
IF THE FRONT IS CLOSED PLEASE ENTER THROUGH MY BACKSIDE…
My sweep pal was here yesterday morning for my biennial or triennial chimney cleanings. We have posted here several times about chimney fires and chimney cleaning, such as here.
Attention recent college grads: He gets $150/chimney, and it takes him 20-30 minutes. A discount for multiple chimneys. He runs his own life his own way. Retired USMC.
He is a fireplace buff and keeps a wood stove burning in his kitchen all fall and winter. He has a place on Cape Cod and burns there on those cool damp summer evenings too. He agrees with me that a clean fireplace makes a lousy fire. You need a 5 or 6" pile of ash underneath. A clean chimney is another matter. I keep the Maggie's Farm home fire burning all day, October-May. Generally, he scrapes a bucket of stuff out of my flue each time he comes.
Why don't I invest in the brushes and do it myself?
Perhaps I will. We have protection these days from ye olde Chimney Sweep's Cancer - cancer of the scrotum. Nasty disease.
There are many small ways of being quietly and undramatically herioc in life, short of going into combat. It's heroic, in a sense, for an agoraphobic to go to the store, for a drunk to go to AA, or for a man to do an unpleasant job his whole life to take care of his family.
Heather MacDonald has fun with the OWS people (who seem to be slowly getting less coverage and interest - and cold rainy Octobers are not fun times to sleep in a park) at City Journal: Get a Job! Working is (usually) more admirable than protesting. She begins:
Why is a month-long slumber party in a public park more heroic or newsworthy than getting up daily and going to work? “I’ve been here a week and I’m lovin’ every minute of it,” a jagged-toothed, self-described vet leaning against a planter in Zuccotti Park told me on Sunday. One of the biggest decisions that he and his fellow occupiers have to make each day is whether to eat vegan or to scarf down some saturated animal fats in the Dunkin’ Donuts that regularly make the rounds, thanks to the bounteous food donations that pour into the park on an hourly basis. (The most critical decision, of course, is which local establishment to invade for your sanitary needs.)
I am deeply concerned about a risk for obesity and constipation among these heroic protesters. Read the whole, amusing thing, and realize that this is a sort of lark for these people, a vacation from real life, party time in the guise of socio-political importance.
As he points out, this nonsense led indirectly to the terrible child abuse "hidden memory" epidemic which destroyed many peoples' lives before finally being fully discredited.
The saying, “charity begins at home”, gets at many issues at the heart of most learned discussions of the charitable deduction from income tax, but also raises a core issue that is too often missed. The income tax is not about charity and should not be given equivalency to charity, and even if many government programs are charitable individual choices to either give charity or not is preferable in most cases and should not be discouraged or dictated by government.
Charity should not begin, or end, wherever government says so. Government should begin or end wherever citizens say so. There's room between but to place government above private choice and enterprise is to misplace priorities and public good and benefits.
The US Senate Finance Committee just held hearings about the charitable deduction that mirrored the arguments that have been raised since the inception of the deduction with the federal income tax during World War I. The questions revolve, and revolve and revolve, around should there be a deduction or other scheme, how much should be allowed, by whom, to which type of organization. Reading a brief history of hearings on the deduction, there is an underlying premise that all of income is subject to government priorities.
I won’t argue for the most selfish interpretation of “charity begins at home”, that all of one’s means should be kept within one’s walls. The Jewish conception of what in English is called charity, tzedakah, makes it a high personal obligation, and unlike the frequently cited 10% the Jewish Testament calls for more as can be afforded. Christians and others of good faith or morality think similarly and give similarly.
On the other hand (as any good Talmudic discussion goes) “charity begins at home” also raises that it is voluntary and one should not abuse one’s personal responsibilities. In other words, the fruits of one’s inheritance or labor are primarily one’s own to decide their use. On the other hand, again, in the social contract we enter into for the personal benefits of being part of a larger order, government, we accept that we are taxed for the general good. In a democracy, cumulatively we choose how much that tax may be and on what. Of course, that is not perfect as there are differing ideas of how much and on what. But, public engagement and elections are available to weigh in.
Throughout the years of government debates on the charitable deduction the incentive has been on raising government revenues, with differing theories of who should pay how much and the relative efficiencies of the schemes and their effects on differing types of recipients being the details.
No one denies, all should abhor, that there are many recipient organizations that abuse the laws and donors’ good intentions to profit insiders and not the public good. That calls for increased enforcement through public exposure, investigations and criminal prosecution. But, on the other hand, that still leaves many recipient organizations allowed by the tax code to commit other abuses of common understandings of charity, such as being mostly political or their proceeds benefiting other than the needy poor. After much outrage and years of mulling this, I still have to come down on the side of the argument that says our money is ours and that there is inadequate justification for giving it instead to government that too often does the same as non-charity charities, not to mention profiting politicians, revolving-door or job-protecting bureaucrats, and government cronies.
Washington, D.C. is the country’s wealthiest area, richer than Silicon Valley. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says “government jobs must take priority over private-sector jobs.” There are Republican and Democrat feeders at the government trough and who are profiting from crony capitalism. There is less to show from all their taxpayer expense than they would want us to believe. There is more to show in general public good from entrepreneurs, productive businesses, steering progress through private choices of what is needed or desirable.
I never have the free time to do all of the things I want to do. All I have is late evenings and weekends, plus stealing a few minutes to try to throw something of interest onto our website.
Besides work and taking care of kids, what productive, fun, or constructive (or unconstructive) things do our readers do?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Here's what I do: A little golf, a little horseback riding with the Mrs., Deacon at church, one committee in our town government, a committee at our golf club, a fund-raising committee for a conservation charity, a little fishing in season, a little shooting, unskilled labor on our place (field-mowing, tree-clearing, log-splitting, fence-repairing, some barn cleaning), spare-moments surfing the net, some book-reading every night, and a fair amount of socializing which I try to limit to two things per week. A quite ordinary American life for a fellow whose kids have flown the nest, I think. A nobody, or an everybody. I am blessed that my spouse, dogs, and friends like me.
I've seen enough cloisers and cloister gardens in Europe to occupy my brain for a lifetime, but we went down to The Cloisters yesterday with friends to go on the Medieval Gardening tour. The museum overlooks the Hudson River near the northern tip of Manhattan, not far from where Alexander Hamilton's farm and country house was located.
Good fun. 1 1/2 hrs. Excellent docent, clearly loves her topic. She spent 15 minutes on the plants in the 15th C. unicorn tapestries besides going outdoors to discuss the medieval gardens. (I think most people go to the Cloisters just to see the unicorn tapestries, the subject of which is a symbolic mingling of romantic and sexual love with Christianity but it is difficult to understand them without an informed introduction to them.)
A Hortus conclusus is an enclosed garden, taken by monks from the Roman enclosed gardens, with a Christian symbolic gloss. (As I always say, if you want to understand the Romans, one must look at oneself. We of the Anglosphere are Romans.)
It's taken me many years to learn one thing: Wwherever you go, Always Take The Tour first. Be humble and learn.
Presentation matters, in dress as well as in attitude, comportment, and, of course, useful skills and ability.
"One of the saddest sights in the hotel conference hall is not so much the sloppily dressed interview candidate, as the ineptly dressed interview candidate — the one in the brand new, too-cheap, shiny, ill-fitting suit with too-short sleeves and too-long pants, rushing through the halls clutching a fake-leather briefcase. That person smells of desperation. Don’t let it be you."
I do a fair amount of interviewing and don't give a darn about how people are dressed as long as it shows some respect for themselves and for my time. Most people care about these things more than I do. However, one must sell oneself, not just to get a job but also to keep a job.
Please shave your beaver, or have the Korean ladies give you a Brazilian.
Why?
Why must men shave their faces in Western civilization? It is just one more annoying chore in getting ready to face the day, and it is surely "unnatural," and doubtless a contributor to global warmingcoolingclimate change whatever.
When I take a pass on this annoyance on the occasional weekend, She Who Must Be Obeyed tells me that I look like a bum. Well, I find taking showers a time-wasting burden too. I think I have an inner hippie, an inner Cave Man, or an inner Occupy Wall Street. Probably an inner Yankee Farmer.
If you shave your pet beaver, I will shave my face.
I don't really care if I look like a bum on weekends. Sue me. Good grooming is a hassle. When you reach maturity, hair grows revoltingly out of your damn ears and nostrils and everywhere else.
She is probably right that I need to conform to fit into modern society. I find it all tedious and tiring sometimes, but I have what it takes to keep on keepin' on. Happy wife, happy life, as they say.
Her experience, she explains, "led me to one of the most sobering insights I had as a professor-turned-student: how little intellectual life seemed to matter in college. This is not to say that no one cared about her education or that everyone cut all his classes. Rather, what I observed was that engagement in the philosophical and political issues of the day was not a significant part of college student culture."
Of course, people still commit innumerable bad actions, but the idea that people make conscious decisions to hurt or harm is no longer sustainable, say the new brain scientists. For one thing, there is no such thing as "free will" with which to decide to commit evil. (Like evil, free will is an antiquated concept for most.) Autonomous, conscious decision-making itself may well be an illusion. And thus intentional evil is impossible.
Many people do make conscious decisions to be hurtful or destructive. What could be more obvious? These neuroscientist folks can't see the mind for the neurons, it seems to me. As always in such cases, however, a conversation with the scientists would reveal that they do, themselves, lead lives in which good, evil, and choice are operative. Otherwise, they would deserve no recognition for their research because it was just their neurons making them do it.
Shh-hh. Are we alone? I'm going to do something here that I'm not sure any blogger has ever done before, and, in fact, might actually be some kind of digital misdemeanor. Or, at very least, break Blogger's Rule #1.
Saw one yesterday, flitting slowly through some shrubs. You will occasionally see them in the winter everywhere in the eastern US, hunting for bug larvae. 
It's the time of year when we re-link our world-famous 
Please shave your beaver, or have the Korean ladies give you a Brazilian.