Saturday, March 3. 2007
 A Christian urologist responds to an entitlement-minded guy who complains about the fee for an elective surgical procedure - a vasectomy reversal. Price, Value and Grace, at The Doctor is In. Wow. A sample:
I greatly appreciate your note, and understand well your frustration at the high cost of reversal surgery. To you these fees seem unreasonably high, an insurmountable barrier to the deepest need and desire of your heart. By any objective standard, my fees for this procedure are reasonable. My current expertise in this area has been acquired through a long and arduous education and training experience, augmented by nearly 30 years of experience in performing this microsurgical procedure, which is extremely demanding — perhaps one of the most difficult procedures in all of surgery, regardless of specialty. There are perhaps no more than a few dozen surgeons in the world who bring this kind of experience to the restoration of fertility after vasectomy — yet many surgeons with far less experience, using cruder and often unsuccessful surgical techniques, are charging as much or more than this for the procedure. Top specialists in this field — which you know if you have researched these costs — not uncommonly charge two, three, sometimes four or more times as much as the fees I have quoted. Do I believe that many of these charge far too much? Most definitely — but most have earned that right through rigorous training, long hours, and hard work. They most certainly have the right to charge what they will — as you have the right to have this procedure, or not. So I make no apologies for my fees. You say I do not live in your world, which is most certainly true; you also do not live in mine. Could you sustain the $40,000 a month which it costs to keep the doors of my small, efficient, one-doctor practice open? Do you believe these fees go merely to line my pockets, to keep me in Porsches and luxury yachts? Believe what you will, of course — but as the apostle Paul says in 1st Timothy (5:18), “The laborer deserves his wages.” The God who judges you also judges me — and before Him I am confident that these fees are just and not extortionary.
How many people do you know who complain about the price of medical care, but not about the price of a new car, or a new large-screen TV, or a new boat, or their estate-planning lawyer? Read the whole piece.
Steven Spielberg had a stolen Norman Rockwell painting in his collection. What a bizarre story. "Russian Schoolroom," a Rockwell painting stolen from a gallery in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton, Mo., more than three decades ago, was found in Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced Friday. Spielberg purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement.
The painting was commissioned by Look Magazine in 1967. Spielberg is a longtime collector of Rockwell paintings, and helped to found the Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Good for him. Norman Rockwell was an artist and illustrator of great intuitive insight, famous for painting scenes from everyday life that encapsulate great themes. In 1967, the Soviet Union was still a going concern. Leonid Brezhnev was advancing Marxist insurgencies in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America. The point of the Soviet bayonet was prodding the United States through a proxy war in Vietnam. Being a closed society, the Soviet Union was able to sow the seeds of confusion about its aims and its depredations on the lives of its own people in the open western press.
Continue reading "Do Kulaks Love Their Children Too? The stolen Rockwell painting"
 An Amish boy and his father were in a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and then slide back together again.
The boy asked, "What is this, Father?" The father (never having seen an elevator) responded, "Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don't know what it is." While the boy and his father were watching with amazement, a fat old lady in a wheel chair moved up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched the small circular numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until it reached the last number and then the numbers began to light in the reverse order. Finally the walls opened up again and a gorgeous 24-year-old blonde stepped out.
The father said quietly to his son....."Go get your mother."
Friday, March 2. 2007
This Roy Lichtenstein lifted from our cousin Mr. Free Market: 
Dissect them alive: A Japanese soldier remembers the war. If you have a strong stomach, read it...and enjoy your Lexus or your Toyota.
 It's Friday, and early Spring in lovely Hartford, CT. How do I know? I hear the spring song of the Song Sparrow and of the Cardinal, and they are telling to me to think about planting some Sugar Snap peas soon. And soon our local Box Turtles will be clomping out of their cosy winter dens in the leaf and mulch piles, in their Wellies, looking for slugs and early shoots in the garden and hoping I will toss them a rotten tomato from the kitchen.
What to do on a dark rainy day like this, besides work? Well, we can reminisce about Fridays of old at Sippican Cottage, while waiting for Dust My Broom's Friday Blues and Beer series. And we can reminisce about the 20th anniversary of Plato and Shakespeare scholar Allan Blooms' The Closing of the American Mind with R.R. Reno at First Things (h/t, View from 1776). An important book, and a best-seller, somehow. A few quotes from the Reno piece: Bloom’s book was a real sensation and a surprise bestseller. Looking back, I can see why. The Closing was more than a highbrow attack on contemporary academic careerism (a la Jacques Barzun), a middlebrow defense of great books (a la E. D. Hirsch), or a populist exposé of tenured radicals and puerile campus ideologues (a la David Horowitz). The gist of Bloom’s polemic—and the book was nothing if not a long, erudite, and hyperbolic polemic—was a brief against the cultural revolution of the 1960s. He said out loud what liberal elite culture could only regard as heresy: The supposed idealism of the 1960s was, in fact, a new barbarism. Whatever moral and spiritual seriousness the long tradition of American pragmatism had left intact in university life, the anti-culture of the left destroyed. The result? Higher education has become, argued Bloom, the professional training of clever and sybaritic animals, who drink, vomit, and fornicate in the dorms by night while they posture critically and ironically by day. Bloom identified moral relativism as dogma that blessed what he called “the civilized reanimalization of man.” He saw a troubling, dangerous, and soulless apathy that pleasured itself prudently with passing satisfactions (“Always use condoms!” says the sign by the dispenser in the bathroom) but was moved by no desire to know good or evil, truth or falsehood, beauty or ugliness. I remember reading Bloom in 1987, feeling as though he was describing what I was experiencing as a young graduate teaching assistant. Bright, energetic, ambitious Yale students could master material with amazing speed. They could discuss brilliantly. They could write effective, well-researched papers. But they possessed an amazing ability to understand without being moved, to experience without judging, to self-consciously put forward their own convictions as mere opinions. On the whole, they seemed to have interior lives of Jell-O.
Wednesday, February 28. 2007
Two Swedes from Wisconsin are sittin' in a boat on Dead Lake, fishing and suckin' beer, when out of the blue Sven comments, "I think I'm going to divorce my wife. She hasn't spoken to me in over six months."
Ole takes a sip of beer and says, "You better think that over. Women like that are hard to find."
Monday, February 26. 2007
For PhDs in Car Control only. YouTube. The parallel parking is the best. Can't wait to try it downtown.
West 28th street in Manhattan has been the flower district for 100 years. I have always enjoyed the way NYC retailers and wholesalers have clumped together for the convenience of their customers and for the convenience of the trucks that deliver to them. The Diamond District, the Fulton Fish Market, the Hunts Point vegetable market, and so on. Heck, there is even a Financial District. Who knew? Such districts have not been created by fiat or by planners, but have grown organically with the relentless logic of market capitalism. 
You can find any flower or plant material you want in the Flower District, in almost any reasonable volume. 300 Bell Song tulips? No problem. As the second largest flower market in the world (after Amsterdam), the market serves retailers from MA, NJ, CT, NYS - and further. The vans arrive to load up on their day's purchases at 5 AM. 
At 6 AM, you will also see a smattering of garden club ladies hunting out stuff for their next creation, which is what brought me and Mrs. Barrister and her pal down to the district from central CT in snow and sleet at o-dark-thirty this morning. I was chauffeur, but I do get a kick out of looking at all of the strange stuff. Some look like science fiction creations, especially some of the strange Protea which, it seems, have been all the rage in recent years. There is one Proteus that looks like eyeballs on a stem. The Greek sea-god was a shape-changer. Her friend wanted these and these, and found them. And some other stuff like the winter Buckeye branches Mrs. B was looking for, plus a ton of pussy willows just for home. As the city changes, the flower district is slowly fading, from over 60 establishments 20 years ago to around 40 right now. But it remains a bustling, thriving place in the early morning. Now I will get out the old plow and do the driveway and the front of the barn so we can let the horses out. Snow day! I'll "work from home" this afternoon by the fire with a few warming glasses of something nice.
Saturday, February 24. 2007
An 85-year-old man was requested by his doctor for a sperm count as part of his physical exam, as a measure of his general health.
The doctor gave the man a jar and said, "Take this jar home and bring back a semen sample tomorrow."
The next day the man reappeared at the doctor's office and gave him the jar, which was as clean and empty as on the previous day. The doctor asked what happened and the man explained, "Well, doc, it's like this - first I tried with my right hand, but nothing. Then I tried with my left hand, but still nothing. Then I asked my wife for help. She tried with her right hand, then with her left, still nothing. She tried with her mouth, first with the teeth in, then with her teeth out, still nothing. We even called up Arleen, the lady next door and she tried too, first with both hands, then an armpit, and she even tried squeezin' it between her knees, but still nothing.
The doctor was shocked! "You even asked your neighbor?"
The old man replied, "Yep. Not one of us could get the jar open."
Friday, February 23. 2007
I thought all of the rats in NYC were at Taco Bell. 
Thursday, February 22. 2007
 I always thought that, too - that he was an abyss-gazer and a frightening metaphysician. From The Fear:
You understand that we have to be careful.
This is a very, very lonely place.
Joel!" She spoke as if she couldn't turn.
The swinging lantern lengthened to the ground,
It touched, it struck it, clattered and went out.
No fuzzy, avunclular, laconic Yankee he. In fact, a Californian transplant to NH via Dartmouth College. "Accessible"? I don't know: his imagery is familiar and country, but that's just imagery. From a New York Sun review of Frost's newly-published Diaries: Frost's popular Yankee image, which he assiduously cultivated through readings, lectures, and even some of his poems, helped him to win the immense popularity that he enjoyed in his lifetime: four Pulitzer Prizes, a spot on the dais at the Kennedy Inaugural. Yet Trilling recognized that the aged poet would not be helped in his passage to posterity by this Norman Rockwell carapace, which could only seem more fake and dated with the years. That is why Trilling insisted on calling Frost, to his face, "a terrifying poet." Really, he had less in common with Longfellow than with Sophocles, "who made plain ... the terrible things of human life." Trilling's remarks came in for what seems now like a surprising amount of criticism. When the New York Times reported on the speech, affronted readers wrote to suggest that Trilling should be taken "to the woodshed," while Frost consoled himself with "a nice plate of buckwheat pancakes and Vermont maple syrup." This anxious resort to the very clichés of Americana, which Trilling had decried, only proved how right he was. It was vital, for Frost's longterm artistic reputation, to separate the maple syrup from the poetry.
Tuesday, February 20. 2007
 ABC and Betty Ford are pleased to announce Britney "Uncle Fester" Spears has been added to the cast of the hit TV series "The Rehab Family."
The show was in danger of being cancelled, but four or five understudies for each character have been signed to long-term, multi-year contracts; and reports are that many of them are breeding! This assures us of years of family entertainment to come! Tune in, any time, any place, to any medium, and see a new episode 24/7.
1910. And it's for sale, too. Think about it. What sort of fiberglass bathtub does your boat club use? 
This oldie just came in over the transom: Question 1:If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded - and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.
Question 2:It is time to elect a new national leader. Here are the facts about the three candidates.
Candidate A.
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
Candidate B.
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.
Which of these candidates would be your choice?
Decide first... then go to Continuation Page for the response.
Continue reading "2 Questions"
Monday, February 19. 2007
"The Marines." Weds. night, 9 Eastern, on PBS (!). For once, wish I had a TV. (thanks, Reader)
 We used to post interesting complaints from time to time, but the onslaught has been overwhelming. It's time for some praise, for relief. "We get letters..." as Mad Magazine used to say:
"A very hip blog, but not enough Buddhism." Allen Ginsberg "I check it frequently." Thomas Brewton at View from 1776 "Maggie's is my favorite blog." G.K. Chesterton "Les Aubes sont navrantes!" Arthur Rimbaud "Maggie's Farm is a daily Ivy League education - and no exams." George W. Bush "There is always a surprise on Maggie's Farm." Rocky Raccoon "I envy your IQs." Albert Einstein "Nice blog, but yo - where the cheesecake at?" Bill Clinton "Eclectic but confusing. What are you all about, and why do you bother?" SL in Indianapolis "This is your third and final notice. Your electric bill is past due." New England Light and Power "You waste too much time with it, and you shouldn't have to edit everything - but I do enjoy reading Maggie's sometimes." My first wife "What is a "blog"?" MR in Covington, KY "I agree with you 100%" Rick Moran at RingWingNutHouse "A very fine, refined, and unpredictable poetry selection. Love it." T.S. Eliot "A bit centrist for my taste, but the blog opens my mind." Markos Jones ("Mr. Jones") at Daily Kos "An essential once-a-year read." TC in Toronto "An exemplar of the true American spirit." George Washington "You are cybersluts who would sell your souls for a reader." JT, CIO, Interplanetary Industries, Ltd. "You sure do know your tractors and your hotdish." Johan Johanssen in Minnesota "Good Injun braves. Heap big hunters. Only blog in casino." Chief Sitting Bull "Excellent New England bog, I mean brog, I mean - hey, pal, that's my drink!" Ted Kennedy "Maggie's Farm has true grit." John Wayne "Maggie's Farm 'gets it'." Frederick Hayek "Most misunderappreciated politically centrist, intelligent, and groovy website in the Milky Way." Powerpine "We put Maggie's on our blogroll, but it was like 'pity sex'." Balloon Juice "You will be the first to die, filthy counter-revolutionary pigs." Lenin "You will be next to die, filthy infidel pigs." Omar Muhammed el Rashid al Ramal, in London "A bunch of f***ing goddam fascist counter-revolutionary pigs who I will have lined up and shot, you f***ing c***suckers." Hillary Clinton "Maggie's makes me feel square and old-fashioned." Sigmund Freud "A deep understanding of the challenges facing Western Civilization." Lionel Trilling "The blog that knows the blues." Sonny Boy Williamson "The blog that knows the Constitution." James Madison " .............................. ." Instapundit "Maggie's Farm has raised my ticket sales by getting my name out, so hurry and place your ads here now!" William Shakespeare "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more." Bob Dylan "Hey - that photo is the farmhouse I grew up in." David Burge, my hero, at IowaHawk "Hey Bird Dog - I just stubbed my toe on the Spanish Steps. Owww. Ouchie." Ezra Pound "Excellent taste in whine." Robert Parker (Parker rating for the 2006 Maggie's Farm: "32. Corked, overly-sweet, too much gunpowder, aftertastes of liver, diver duck and old owl. Past its prime, worn-out even though it was never any good. Drink now if a desperate alcoholic, or, if not, put down the drain immediately.") "You lean a bit left, but you are otherwise quite likeable." John Ashcroft "My sixth or seventh...or maybe eighth... I dunno... favorite blog." His Royal Highness Roger De Hauteville, King of Sicily (brevetted) "If you were in Europe, you'd be in jail where you belong, writing your memoirs on fine French toilet paper." Jacques Chirac "Les oiseaux - fantastique!" John J. Audubon "God bless you all at Margie's Kitchen for your good work. I'd like to offer to name your Connecticut contributors 'Honorary Democrats.' Would that be something they might like? There would be a photo with Nancy Pelosi." Joe Lieberman "Your blog is a good example of why we need to limit political speech in America. Free speech is one thing, but you make it clear why we need limits. Even roads have speed limits. Not everything needs to be said." John McCain "What is all this hideous right-wing nonsense? Do you all really mean all this?" My sister in MA "Hey Bird Dog, get away from my quail." Elvis Presley Image: A 1950 Farmall Model C
Saturday, February 17. 2007
Our friend Synthstuff is home from a hard month of sailing in the Caribbean. How he found this Norwegian link I have no idea, but the story goes like this: Presumably Norwegian dude buys an old, run-down farm in Portugal, and eventually gets around to using a hacksaw to cut the padlocks to a big old abandoned barn on the property that had not been entered in 15 years. If you like cars, scroll down to see what is in there.
Sister Mary Katherine entered the Monastery of Silence. The Priest said, "Sister, you know that this is a silent monastery. You are welcome here as long as you like but you may not speak until I direct you to do so."
Sister Mary Katherine lived in the monastery for 5 years before the Priest
said to her, "Sister Mary Katherine, you have been here for 5 years. You can speak two words." Sister Mary Katherine said, "Hard bed." "I'm sorry to hear that," the Priest said, "we will get you a better bed."
After another 5 years, Sister Mary Katherine was called by the Priest. "You may say another two words, Sister Mary Katherine.” “Cold Food,” said Sister Mary Katherine, and the Priest assured her that the food would be better in the future. On her 15th anniversary at the monastery, the Priest again called Sister Mary Katherine Into his office. “You may say two words today.” “I quit,” said Sister Mary Katherine. “It’s probably best," said the Priest, "you’ve done nothing but bitch since you got here.”
Friday, February 16. 2007
A great blog post - as opposed to a "check this out" post - is succinct, non-rambling, fact-filled, gracefully-written, minimally self-referential, and pulls together disparate themes and unusual facts to shed fresh light on a subject, or to make a random subject interesting. That is to say, a great blog post is a good brief essay, ideally well-salted with links. When I post, I rarely have take the time that is required to be brief. Here's a good example of a fine blog post by Never Yet Melted about deer coursing in Scotland.
This urgent item came in over the transom:  Most of you have read the scare-mail about the person whose kidneys were stolen while he was passed out. While the kidney story was an urban legend, this one is not. It's happening every day in America.
My thighs were stolen from me during the night a few years ago. It was just that quick. I went to sleep in my body and woke up with someone else's thighs. The new ones had the texture of cooked oatmeal. Who would have done such a cruel thing to legs that had been mine for years? Whose thighs were these and what happened to mine? I spent the entire summer looking for my thighs. Finally, hurt and angry, I resigned myself to living out my life in jeans and Sheer Energy pantyhose. Then, just when my guard was down, the thieves struck again. My ass was next. I knew it was the same gang, because they took pains to match my new rear end to the thighs they stuck me with earlier. I couldn't believe that my new ass was attached at least three inches lower than my original. Now, my rear complemented my legs, lump for lump. Frantic, I prayed that long skirts would stay in fashion. It was two years ago when I realized my arms had been switched. One morning I was fixing my hair and I watched horrified but fascinated as the flesh of my upper arms swung to and fro with the motion of the hairbrush. This was really getting scary. My body was being replaced one section at a time. How clever and fiendish. Age? Age had nothing to do with it. Age is supposed to creep up, unnoticed, something like maturity. No, I was being attacked repeatedly and without warning. In despair, I gave up my T-shirts. What could they do to me next? My poor neck suddenly disappeared faster than the Thanksgiving turkey it now resembled. That's why I decided to tell my story. I can't take on the medical profession by myself. Women of the world, wake up and smell the coffee. That really isn't plastic that those surgeons are using. You KNOW where they are getting those replacement parts, don't you? The next time you suspect someone has had a face "lifted," look again. Was it lifted from you? This is not a hoax. This is happening to women in every town every night. WARN YOUR FRIENDS! P.S. I must say that last year I thought someone had stolen my breasts. I was lying in bed and they were gone! As I jumped out of bed, I was relieved to see that they had just been hiding in my armpits as I slept. Now I keep them hidden in my waistband where no-one can find the,. Image: Photo of the author of the above warning, prior to theft of body parts.
Thursday, February 15. 2007
Shamelessly stolen from Villainous Company. I hope Cassandra doesn't mind, but this was too good to pass up. Can guys assume that this is what is going on when a lady has a smile in the line at Starbucks? 
An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him.
He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating woman hit the roof--and the horn--screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.
The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger-printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door.
She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."
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